


Saving Grace

by theunremarkable



Series: Kodaline [8]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: 2010s, Angst, Because a quarter of a million words in the previous works of this series is not slow enough, Bucky Barnes Feels, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Bucky Barnes Recovering, Bucky Barnes and the 21st Century, Canon Divergence - Captain America: The First Avenger, Depression, Eating Disorder Not Otherwise Specified, Explicit Language, Fluff and Angst, Heavy Angst, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Implied/Referenced Torture, M/M, Medical Procedures, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, POV Steve Rogers, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Slow Burn, Steve Rogers Feels, Steve Rogers Needs a Hug, Steve Rogers and the 21st Century, Suicidal Thoughts, Winter Soldier Bucky Barnes, You can hate me - I hate myself, bucky is found before steve, mature themes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-15
Updated: 2021-03-06
Packaged: 2021-03-18 20:54:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 25,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28749579
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theunremarkable/pseuds/theunremarkable
Summary: This, this is his warzone, his shell shock, his PT-whatever letters Bucky wants to call it; Steve doesn’t care. Because it's here. Not a Hydra facility, a plane, or an entire world war. This is what will break his brain, in fact it has, already it blurs the edges of his vision, tunneling, drawing Steve's conscious away from the reality that's in front of him. The disconnect is so far, further than the distance he watched Bucky fall. The worst part is that Steve’sstill holding on,he has Bucky in his arms, hands gripping tight and pushing hard against blood that is slipping through his fingers, promising useless words with a soundless mouth and praying hard, but nothing is doing anything but sending Bucky closer to death.If he’s not there yet.~Or,The aftermath.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Series: Kodaline [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1815748
Comments: 54
Kudos: 223





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Each of the stories in The Kodaline Series will be accompanied by a little soundtrack by Kodaline that inspired the work, either by title, lyrics, feelings or otherwise.
> 
> [Saving Grace, by Kodaline (ft the RTE Concert Orchestra, Dublin Gospel Choir, Voices of Service and an orchestra made up entirely of fans from all over the world)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UF-m8bSwrjw)
> 
> ~
> 
> While Bucky’s having a chill time with his self acceptance and being dead and shit, Steve is having a not so chill time not accepting Bucky being dead and shit. If Bucky, or Tony, were in any mood (or state of being) to be vindictive, they’d say this was payback for the past 66 years. But they’re not. Clint, on the other can, can be as vicious as a viper (thanks Barney) so maybe he’ll say something.
> 
> *TW for gore, medical discussions and imagery, and some off-comment suicidal thoughts*

This, this is his warzone, his shell shock, his PT-whatever letters Bucky wants to call it; Steve doesn’t care. Because it's here. Not a Hydra facility, a plane, or an entire world war. This is what will break his brain, in fact it has, already it blurs the edges of his vision, tunneling, drawing Steve's conscious away from the reality that's in front of him. The disconnect is so far, further than the distance he watched Bucky fall. The worst part is that Steve’s _still holding on_ , he has Bucky in his arms, hands gripping tight and pushing hard against blood that is slipping through his fingers, promising useless words with a soundless mouth and praying hard, but nothing is doing anything but sending Bucky closer to death.

If he’s not there yet.

“Shit, shit, shit,” Tony says, his suit now working - too late - as he powers down next to Steve crouched over Bucky. “Fuck, that’s-, fuck, not good,” Tony pants as Bucky’s closed eyes don’t even flutter, his chest no longer stuttering with something Steve desperately tried to pretend was breath. Steve is pressing white fingers hard on Bucky’s neck, on his chest, there’s nothing to help the divide forcibly created from Bucky’s hip to sternum, not that Steve’s efforts seem to be doing anything anyway. The pool of blood is ever growing, soaking Steve’s knees and Tony’s toes, and there’s _so much_ , Steve never knew there was this much blood in a person. He wants desperately to scoop it all up and dump it back into where it should be, where it’ll do good, but even Steve doesn’t think the serum would let him move fast enough for the tsunami flowing from Bucky. It’s raging and unforgiving, and if it’s done, if Bucky is already dead, Steve wishes the blood would stop, because he-, he _can’t_ ; he’ll never be free of this red tinge in everything he sees, his hands never clean nor dry, his nose will know nothing ever again than this stench of iron and salt.

“Bucky,” Steve attempts, barely a croak, his throat has only continued to swell since the electricity stopped. It’s blistered and raw, layers and layers of tissue burnt away and making him swallow his own blood, but he barely notices, too busy choking on Bucky's blood.

“Clint, Imma need that jet,” Tony directs, “like, five minutes ago,”

“On it.”

“Jarvis, give me emergency first aid. Get a Mark-Medic to meet the jet on the way.”

“Yes, Boss,” comes a tinny reply as Tony double taps on the white light on his chest. The suit whirs, then breaks into pieces, assembling around Bucky as quickly as it detaches from Tony's form.

“Fucking Winter fuckers,” Tony mutters, then more calmly, “Alright Steve, move your hands, Jarvis has got it, I promise.”

But Steve can’t move his hands, he’s frozen, he can’t trust Bucky’s life in some robot’s hands. He can’t even trust Bucky’s life in his own hands, that’s been proven already. Twice, first the train and then now; but no, now, there is no life in his hands at all.

It doesn’t matter what Steve can or can’t do, because the suit continues regardless, molding over Bucky’s body. It’s Natasha who pulls him back, he’s got no energy to do anything but fall back and soak his back side in blood that isn't his, staring as Bucky’s body is covered by a different sort of red.

“Boss, I most certainly do not have this,” - and that’s when Steve, impossibly, _really_ starts to panic. This is what the future has banked on, he's gathered, for technology, and robots, to do everything. If Jarvis can't - “I can apply compression to the stomach wound and partially pressure to the severed carotid artery, but Mr. Barnes is experiencing lack of oxygen to the brain and I cannot apply compression to his subclavian artery. Emergency procedure requires a thoracotomy, though the multiple contraindications generate a severely low survival rate.”

The Quinjet settles down on the field just beyond them before Jarvis is finished. The ramp is barely down before Clint vaults over it, not to Bucky, but to the Winter Soldier, and he drags the body onto the jet.

“Work with me J, gimme numbers,” Tony grits as the suit lifts, Bucky- no, Bucky’s _body_ lifts with it. Steve tries to help, to get to Bucky but he doesn’t even have the strength to stand, and Natasha has to haul Steve up under the armpits, slinging his arm around her shoulders and all but dragging him like Clint and the enemy before him. Steve tries to protest, but the suit flies into the jet and he needs to be near, needs to stay close, so he lets Natasha handle him into the seat, close enough to the steel table that the suit lands on.

“Hypovolemic shock is life threatening at 20% of the patient’s blood loss,” Jarvis continues as Natasha reaches towards the ceiling and pulls down something not unlike the munitions, but Steve understands these devices not to take lives, but save them. “Mr Barnes has already lost 23% of total volume. Additionally, survival rate for penetrating carotid arteries is 6% following immediate surgery, an emergency thoracotomy with a penetrating thoracic injury is 8.8%. Although enhanced, these percentages for Mr Barnes with an excess of injuries are-”

“Okay, yeah, take that back, shup up now, please. Clint?” But the ramp is already moving and before it’s even closed, they’re off, faster than the flight in.

Tony stares at Natasha and swallows hard. There are shadows on him that weren’t there only moments ago; shadows Steve recognises from Europe and wishes he’d never see again.

“Determine best course of life preservation.”

“Sir-”

“Now,” Tony snaps.

Jarvis' voice is steady, soothing, almost calming, but his words are not. “Simultaneous blood replacement, oxygenation, staunching of abdomen and carotid haemorrhaging and emergency thoracotomy. Though might I remind you, those percentages are results of treatment performed by highly trained medical professionals.”

"We're too far out," Tony says to Natasha. “We got no choice; how steady are your hands right now?”

“As ever,” Natasha says, primly, but it lacks volume, and she’s paler than Steve’s ever seen. “I’ll take the heart, can you cover the rest?"

“Not by myself,” Tony shakes his head. “Steve? I know you’ve just been barbequed, but we’re gonna need your help here, buddy.”

“I don’t-, I can’t-,”

“We have to take this into our own hands, we have to try. I just need you to keep pressure on his neck. You’re going to have to pinch the artery, I’m sorry.”

Tony pulls Steve off the seat, and he slips, his boots squeaky on Bucky’s blood which has slicked the floor already. Tony takes his weight and pulls him to the table. Steve can’t see, can’t stand, can't even _breathe_ right now, and Tony wants him to-

“It’s gonna spurt, I’ll help you find it, you’ll just have to hold tight after that, alright? Alright. In three, two, one.”

Tony gives him no time to do anything but react blindly when the suit falls apart and Bucky’s pale face comes into focus once more. It's instant, the flow, and hits him across his face and front. It marrs his vision, Steve blinking and blind while Tony does what he said he would, finds two pieces of rubbery Steve-doesn’t-know-what, but instructs him to take over, and hold tight.

Steve holds on for dear life.

Beside him, Tony works on inserting a red tube into Bucky’s wrist, then a clear one on the other side of his neck. “Lucky we know this works, cuz we did it on you,” he mutters, and if Steve was in any sort of mind right now, there would be questions. “Oxygen,” he explains, but Steve doesn’t care. Bucky’s not breathing, it’s not going to work.

Steve stops listening as on the other side of the table, Natasha starts to cut open Bucky’s chest to Jarvis's instructions. Steve can’t watch, can’t bear to look at the bare skin peeling away like his stomach, can’t look at thin hands reaching in and clamping down on whatever is killing, maybe already has, killed Bucky, all the while Bucky has a face of nothingness.

“We’ve got this. We’ve got this,” Tony repeats, reassuring no one.

He finishes with the tubes and moves to beside Steve, to do what he can to the slice down Bucky’s stomach. It’s all pointless, nothing’s working, whatever they’re doing, because Bucky is still not breathing, the liquid Tony’s putting in his body spilling out just as fast, and as soon as Tony pushes the skin of the stomach wound together, Natasha swears and makes the deliberate wound on Bucky’s chest bigger, so she can reach in and take his heart in her own hands and keep it beating.

If that’s what it could be called.

Time flows strangely, it’s a longer hour than it took to fly there, but Steve knows it should be less because Clint is flying faster than he did before, and everyone’s movements seem slow, languid, almost apathetic. Except for Bucky’s, because there’s no movement at all from him. Steve hasn’t even swallowed this whole time, it’s starting to run out the corner of his mouth, but he can’t let himself shift to wipe it away, because even in his grip, Bucky’s blood is still trickling about between the pinch of his fingers.

As always, Steve is useless.

Steve can’t even let go once they reach the Tower, when the plane hovers close enough that doctors can transport Bucky to a table and wheel him away, shouting words that could be Russian or Greek, sticking more tubes in and taking others out.

“Let them do their jobs, Steve-O,” Tony says, and tugs him back, hard, another spray of blood down Steve’s front for his efforts. Steve should be happy about that, that there is even blood to still leave Bucky’s body, a tease of life, but he’s not; he’ll never be happy again.

The sight of Bucky disappearing before him is enough to give Steve reason, enough to launch him down the open ramp, but his legs still don’t work, and he falls onto broken, burnt and bloodied hands. This time, both Natasha and Tony lift him, it’s easier for the both of them to carry him, and Clint flies away. He doesn’t fight, he knows they’ll lead him to where Bucky will be, but once on the medical level, he’s separated by a glass wall. It’s clear, he can see, but it’s still a whole wall and he pushes against them, to be closer, to be near, to follow the sounds of doctors concerns and beeping machines.

“Steve,” It could be clear, but to him it's garbled, distant, like his hearing has gone again. "Steve," a bark this time, but it doesn't reach his brain. “Alright, Steve, just calm down, please, you’re freaking me out,” he hears Tony whine through a tunnel, as young and scared as Steve feels right now. “Natasha? Can you do the thing, please? Patriot Pants is having a panic attack.”

Steve can’t breathe, and he can hear how much he can’t breathe, can see the spots in front of his eyes from it though his chest is heaving violently. But Natasha doesn’t come, nothing does, no air, until Tony's hand slaps across his mottled cheek.

“Holy-fffff,” Tony says, and the bizarreness of the situation is enough to somewhat settle Steve, enough that he can force a gulp of air down his closed throat. “I think I just broke my hand on your face. I definitely should have seen that coming. Sorry,” he says apologetically once he sees Steve’s eyes are focusing on something, on him, “but Natasha’s disappeared. I just- you were scaring me.”

Steve nods, still gulping. It didn’t even hurt him, he wishes it did.

“God, you’re worse than Buck. He at least listened,” Tony shakes his head as Steve tries to push into the room again on wobbly legs.

Tony forces him down on a hard bench, hands pressing down on shoulders so firm that he couldn’t rise even if he had the energy. Steve begins to shake, his hands so much that even Tony can’t ignore them.

“Yeah, uh, doctor for you,” and he looks to his watch, punching fingers once, then twice. Tap tap.

Steve shakes his head. His throat is fire, or only burning embers, maybe it's melted away, because all that comes out is a whine. He licks his lips and attempts again. “Pepper,” he croaks.

“She’s on her way, Steve,” Tony says kindly, and lets go, but hovers awkwardly at Steve’s side, an arm either side of him as if he’s going to topple over. He might.

But Pepper’s not on her way, she’s far away because she doesn’t appear, because Tony got her somewhere safe, somewhere away from Steve who only causes trouble and death wherever he goes.

“Tony,” Pepper gasps, slamming Steve back into a broken body that now deems to offers sight and sound. She kisses Tony’s head, and rubs up and down his back once. He purses his mouth together and jerks his head towards Steve.

“Oh, Steve,” Pepper says, with a look awful sadness, as if the worst has already happened, like a funeral sad. Sad, sad, sad, like Bucky was the day Steve woke 66 years in the future. “Oh, dear,” she says and places a kiss to the top of his head as well.

“I’m confused, but I’m going to allow it,” Tony says with a cocked eyebrow, but his voice is constricted too much for it to be serious.

Just as quickly as the lips press, they leave, and so does Pepper’s presence entirely. It brings back the hitching of Steve’s breath, the muddling of his vision, with tears this time. He feels like a child, but goddam if he’s not going to cry about _this_. She returns in barely a second, feels like hours, could be years, and kneels in front of him with a warm towel. Tenderly, she brings his broken hands closer to her kind heart and begins to wipe away Steve's greatest fight, the blood that resulted from it. Not his blood, but his fault. There are tears falling on the hands, as if his own body is trying to rid the red, but bless Pepper, she just wipes them away lovingly, too.

She’s meticulous, and gentle, and he knows his hands will forever stained, but she’s done a fair job. The feeling, the wet is still there, and her hands aren’t as warm as Peggy’s, as Bucky’s, but she’s filling his heart in a way that neither of them have yet. There’s a stray bit of hair that’s long, long enough to keep falling onto his forehead, and Pepper keeps brushing it away between wiping the blood, sweat and tears from his exposed skin.

It’s too much for Steve, and he can’t see anything, not even Pepper in front of him as the tears take his vision. It's a different failure of his body than the past hour, but no less painful. He can’t even speak, to answer her concerns, can’t even hear her soothing over the noise he’s making. But he can feel her, slim fingers around his neck and running through his hair, pulling him into her, tight, so tight he’s not sure he’d ever be able to get away. He doesn’t want to, anyway. The only person he could want right now, as much as Bucky, is Pepper.

“Sorry,” he bubbles between sobs. “You remind me of my mother.”

He’s not even sure those are the words that are said, or heard, but Pepper understands, because of course she does. With grace, poise and gentleness that all only increase the familiarity of Sarah Rogers, to confirm, to make him wail harder, she smiles softly as she again pushes the hair off his forehead and says, “To raise a man as great as you, she must have been incredible. I’m honoured.”

Her smile is genuine, and genuinely his Ma’s, and he lets himself continue to cry. He’s in so much pain, physical, yes, but this feeling, this familiar feeling that he could only handle for three days the last time he experienced is overriding any hurt his body is in. Steve wants it to stop, he doesn’t care how, he’ll borrow the Quinjet again if he has to, he no longer cares for anything that isn't Bucky. And if Bucky is dead, there’s no reason for Steve to be alive.

“We’ve got a doctor coming for Mr. Rogers,” a nurse calls out as she rushes past. “Mr. Stark, the arm is causing issues with the surgery. If you could?”

At this, Steve can sit a little straighter, more forward, can find the strength for the words. “No, I need-”

“-to be perfectly healthy _when_ Bucky wakes up, otherwise there really will be a death from all this and I tell you with all certainty that it will be mine.” Tony pushes him back into the chair. “Pep?”

“We’ll be right here,” she confirms, and squeezes Steve’s wrist, gently enough it doesn’t twinge his broken bones. “Go help Bucky. Here,” she says to Steve, and maneuvers him slightly, so he’s sitting taller, and wipes the last of the tears from under his eyes with her thumb. From here, he can see clearly the whole room in front. Blue clothes and blue mouths, he doesn't even know which is Tony when he joins, but he knows where Bucky is, on a cold table in the center, and he knows where Bucky is not, which is here, with him.

Pepper continues to hold Steve up, even when the medical staff come for him. They don’t fuss over it, just pull-down Steve’s suit to the waist and attach more dots to him. There should be a small sense of fear, the part that is currently grounded by Pepper's presence, of what they could do, but his fear for Bucky easily overrides it.

And it would be unwarranted, the small machines just connect to a big machine, and the doctor waves a small wand over him which puts pictures of the inside of his body onto a computer screen. Someone presses a stethoscope against him, and he ignores their direction to breath deep because he couldn’t even if he wanted to. They continue to poke and prod, a light in his eye and something in his mouth, and Steve tries not to clench too hard on Pepper’s precious hand in his.

“You’ve been on the receiving end of a rather significant amount of electricity, Mr. Rogers. Your heart is extremely weak at the moment.”

If Bucky was here, he'd say "No shit." Steve can't even say it in his stead, his throat too raw and Pepper beside him. And Bucky's body in front.

“Do you have a headache? Loss of consciousness, numbness, breathing problems, vision loss, irregular heartbeat? Pain?” Steve bobs his head to all of the third time they ask, and the feeble answer makes both the team and Pepper purse their lips. “Do you want some painkillers?” He ignores them, just looking forward, and their lips grow thin. They wouldn’t work anyway, the rational part still connected to Pepper thinks.

“We’ll need to do IV fluids and monitor him,” the doctor in charge directs, and if Steve’s heart was still working it would have stopped again.

“No, I-”

“You can stay here, Steve. No one’s making you leave yet,” she says as hands touch him again.

“Actually, please don’t leave here until we tell you to, and don’t pull these off. You should not be alive right now, with the length and type of shock you received, but that’s our lives, I guess. Either way, you’re not in a good place, we need to keep an eye on your heart. There are some internal burns in your oesophagus and stomach, no doubt you feel them. Here's hoping they might heal on their own. Molly will stay with you, but we’ll have a doctor check back in an hour.”

But it’s not over. The doctor and nurses tsk when they get to his arms. He doesn’t even notice, but suddenly he looks down and there’s a full, hard cast from his left elbow to his hand, only the tips of his finger poking out. “Don’t ask us how long this will need to stay on for because we have no clue. You need to wear a splint on the other hand. Please keep it on,” they grumble as a stiff, metal glove is attached with a ripping sound to his right, meaning Pepper has to let go. The material on the splint seems to stick to itself, and stops him from moving just as much as the cast. They attached a clear needle with a clear bag, like Bucky. Pepper rubs his lower back once his hands are unavailable and clutches at his right elbow. They both stare at the window where Bucky looks no different.

She continues to comfort him with her slow strokes the whole time, however long it is.

“Bucky says you practice Catholicism,” Pepper murmurs at some point.

“I’m not sure anymore,” Steve answers. It's difficult to get the words out in a way that has nothing to do with the burns in his mouth, and his indecision brings about a new set of tears.

“It’s all a bit much, isn’t it,” she says, and shuffles closer so Steve can lean into her more. He tries to be careful, but she takes more weight than he thought she could handle, and he lets her. It feels as nice as anything could, in this moment. “Still, would it make you feel better to pray? I can do it if you’d not like to make the decision.”

Steve nods gratefully. Even if he’s not sure if the meaning of the words is true, Pepper’s voice is soothing and distracting. He tries to learn the patterns of her voice, the shape of the words, and when she takes a break, he finds focusing on her breathing does just as much to keep him from tipping into further despair.

Steve didn’t know he had tears left, but he cries a little more at the passages she knows in Latin; Bucky had told him no one spoke it in church for almost half century now, and Pepper doesn’t look that old at all. He doesn’t know if it’s comforting or more distressing, but her presence is the former as he looks at Bucky’s still form which is the latter.

She stops and starts as she remembers for hours, just as doctors stop and start with their poking and prodding and slicing and stitching of Bucky, until a different doctor steps into his field of vision.

“I’m happy with your obs so far, though I’d like to see you tomorrow for a check-up and to determine how long you’ll need the cast on for.” Steve just blinks up at him, so he directs the next words towards Pepper. “Big brother will keep an eye on him, just in case, but please get him to contact us if he’s feeling unwell overnight. Plenty of fluids and a soft meal should do him well.”

Steve assumes the doctor means Pepper’s big brother, as far as he knows Tony doesn’t have one, nor does he or Bucky, but really, he doesn’t care.

Pepper stands, and he falls a little, for the first time having to take all of his own weight. She settles him, and starts to guide him up by the elbows, and it’s only then that he understands what the doctor meant. “I can’t,” he pleads up at her.

“Just a shower, Steve, and some soup. We’ll come right back, I promise.”

He shakes his head, and Pepper looks towards the doctor.

“He’ll be in surgery for a few hours more,” the doctor explains. “It’s serious, but he’s stable for now. Of course Jarvis can let you know the instance that changes, in your own suite. Should it happen,” he quickly amends.

Steve still doesn't move.

Pepper commands him, though gently, with a, “Come now, dear," and it's the same gentle reprimand be receives for the first 19 years of his life that he doesn’t even think, he just follows.

She leads him to the bathroom in Bucky’s apartment, quickly, as if the sight will set him off again and it just might, but leaves the door ajar. There’s no shame when she strips him to his briefs and sits him in the bath, leaving both his broken arms out. The shower head comes off, it’s much easier to wash his hair and back this way than with a bucket. It only makes him cry harder, because although its reminiscent of days with his mother, in a way, it’s better than anything she ever gave him because Pepper’s water is warm, and promising, and clean.

She wipes away those tears too, as quickly as they come, leaving Steve free to watch the rest of the blood washing down the drain, swirling until eventually it runs clear too.

He lets himself be hypnotised by the curls of the water until it hurts his eyes, knowing it's better than looking at Bucky's broken body, but like everything he's ever known, it isn't infinite. The shower stops, and the gentle patter on his skin is replaced by a heavy weight. The towel is soft but it seems to rub him raw, even the soft of the jumper and sleep pants that would normally soothe him, calm even Bucky, scratch at his bare skin. But it’s not that, the feeling comes from within, this unsettled, this allergy to even the air that Bucky’s no longer sharing.

Pepper just wipes her thumbs across the tops of his cheeks that aren't bruised, not finding the words to placate him this time round, and leads him out, he hopes, to back down to the medical level where Bucky will be awake, and talking, joking, or waking him from this terrible nightmare.

But they don’t, because they’re stopped by Natasha in the doorway, still in her black uniform, hands still bloodied, eyes now looking just as red.

“They’re going to stop,” she breathes out, and Steve’s heart sinks out his toes, drops all the levels down the Tower and splatters onto New York pavement to be stomped on by unyielding pedestrians. “They think it’s too much stress for his body, right now, they want him to rest, to heal, overnight. He- they. He’s not breathing, his heart won’t keep going by itself. They have machines to do it for him,” she whispers, “but they’re going to stop.”

“I have to get to Tony,” Pepper whispers apologetically, in horror.

Steve just nods numbly, unable to unstick his feet or budge his leaden legs. Natasha mirrors him, and they stand there, for long after the door shuts behind Pepper. “We should…” he starts, another jumble of words that get stuck in a throat thick with burns, but Natasha shakes her head.

“They won’t let you see, not this bit,” she says, and takes a few steps towards him. He debates pushing past her though he’s not sure he has the strength, but she adds, “Another hour, then you can stay the night in medical.” She takes a few steps more, then stops suddenly.

He wonders what could be worse, than seeing the bathtub full of blood he just washed away and Natasha carving his chest open.

He decides he doesn’t want to know. He can't-, he's not strong enough. And they say, _Natasha_ says there will be a tomorrow. She might be the only person who cares for Bucky as much as him, and she believes there is a tomorrow, so there needs to be a tomorrow for Steve as well.

He can't be alone for this hour, lest his heart win over his mind. 

"Steve," Natasha says, and he's grateful, it pulls him back, his focus to her. Her, in front of him, drowned in red; her hands, her eyes, her hair.

But it’s not the Natasha he knows, of only two weeks. The woman before him is stripped bare, he thinks if he could see her soul, it would be red too, but not a royal, bold, rubescent shade, but more like a pink, of that of a young girl’s.

“How old are you?”

“Twenty-seven,” she whispers.

There's no freezing with the revelation; Steve's already cemented in this position.

Though separated by almost a century, _sh_ _e’s the same age._

Natasha cut Bucky open to save his life and all Steve did was cry. She helped him back from the Soldier almost as much as Peggy, maybe more, and all Steve did was throw him back into it. She, at twenty-seven, took down two soldiers that Steve with all his gift from science, could barely even get a hit in, which is what has lead to this situation in the first place.

"Steve," she says again, and goes to reach for him, her hand close enough to disturb. He knows he'll never be free of the ichor, but something about the thought of a print of Bucky's blood on the canvas Pepper tried to wipe clean makes him bold enough to step back. Her face crumbles, he wasn't even aware she could get sad, let alone paint this perfect picture of woe, and it jolts his disposition again, to extend his hand out himself and link his free fingers through her slighter ones and tug her through the apartment.

Like him, it only seems to upset her further, but she allows herself to be lead into the bathroom. Natasha has no cares about modesty and strips down completely before Steve has a chance to look away. He turns to leave, but as she sits under the stream Sand draws her knees up, she whispers with still red rimmed eyes, “Can you stay?”

Steve nods, and sits with his back to the tub, head turned towards her but not looking. He can’t assist her, as Pepper him, with his hands in their bandages, but she doesn’t seem to mind. She’s in there longer than Steve, the air is steamy and the walls being to bead with water as they sit in the silence, her head on the lip of the tub.

It takes him a long time to realise she’s even crying. He doesn’t have the energy, the capacity, to deal with her grief on top of his at the moment. But he does anyway. Not just for what she did for Bucky, but because she needs it. She’s finally shown him who she is, and it’s just as young and vulnerable and scared as he.

He shuffles up closer and offers his shoulder, because that’s about as much as he can, and Natasha moves to rest his head on his shoulder, water running down his dry shirt.

“Natasha? Are you-?” It's a stupid question, so he stops.

“I will be. Clint, he-. A couple of years ago, his brother-,” she swallows, audibly, in his ear. “If he can make it through that, James will make it through this.”

“Where is Clint?”

“He needed to land the plane and secure the Soldier’s body. Now he is dealing with the aftermath of the fight.”

“How?”

“He likes to get high.”

“What?” Steve chokes on incredulity as his head whips towards her. He blames the swelling in his throat, or perhaps the sudden shock of pain as his head knocks into hers, the black where the Soldier’s fist bruised him colliding into her forehead.

“Not like that. We all have our way of dealing. Tony is fixing a problem, which is undoubtedly useful, Pepper’s is caring, also useful. James shuts down completely, as you've seen, which is not useful at all, and Clint likes to climb buildings, situate himself high, in rafters or vents. Though he and Tony might wait until this is handled and get a spliff strong enough to make them forget any of this happened.”

It's easier for both of them, he thinks, to keep talking about Clint.

“Why heights?”

“He was in the circus.”

"Trapeze?" Steve continues, not caring, though the thought of Clint flipping through the air strikes him as odd.

Natasha shakes her head against his shoulder, wet hair tickling his ear. “His father, and brother-,” she swallows again. “They weren't as nimble, couldn't quite get up as high. It's where he feels safest."

“And you?” He asks softly. "How do you deal?"

“I'm not normally like this.”

“What are you like?”

“I'm better. We both are. He was meant to be better,” she half hisses, half sobs. “Better than everyone.”

So was Steve.

Natasha senses it. She looks up at him and grabs his chin, hard, pulling his face close to hers. “It’s not your fault.”

“It was my plan.”

“It’s not your fault.”

“I should have got up.”

“It’s not your fault.”

They sit in silence, for a long time more, but even so the water doesn’t lose its heat.

“It’s not your fault,” she says again, and releases his face.

He doesn’t acknowledge the words, but when she doesn't settle back down into the tub, he asks, “Would you like to get out now?”

She nods, and asks, “Pants?”

Steve stares a moment before he can nod. She looks so young, this whole situation is bizarre; it's almost like its bed time for Grace and Evie, before they could dress and dry themselves, though he doesn't expect Natasha to run naked away from him and dig ribs into him while he reads a story to settle her. It only adds to the ache, the all-consuming ache. He takes his time to rummage through the drawers, waiting till the shower is off for long enough that she can stand and dry in peace. Not that he can walk fast anyway, but he makes it to the cupboard and back eventually, unassisted. He hands her some of Bucky’s smaller looking pants, and the hoodie he wore to sleep last night.

He pauses as he holds it out to her. _Last night,_ it was less than a day ago that Steve’s whole life was the right way round. She takes it gingerly, already in Bucky's sleep pants, and shuffles it on until it hangs past her waist and she can hide her hands in the length of the sleeves. It seems to do for her what Steve wants for himself, settle her energy which each breath she breathes smelling slightly of Bucky. 

She gives him another smile, a soft one, different from any he’s seen from her, and when she speaks, there’s no difference, but there’s all the difference, her words more rounded, more _American_. “You can call me Nat,” she says as she begins to scrunch her hair into a towel, and he can see curls starting to form. He’s never seen her with curls, never heard these words from her, nor the accent. He’s beginning to think the Natasha, Nat, he’s seen up until now has been no one other than who she’s crafted for him.

He just nods, and sits on the bed to watch her.

"Are you okay?" He asks again, when he realises his question might not be so ridiculous. "The doctors, did they-"

"I'm fine," she says, and stares at him until his shoulders drop when he believes it. "It wasn't pleasant, but it feels no different now than a concussion. I can only imagine it's a lesser version than what happens to James, though. I don't know, maybe the triggers are less strong, maybe mine were less reinforced, I could go crazy with the 'why's'. I'll find out, one day, but now right now. Not with James-." She takes a shaky breath and comes to sit beside him on the bed. She hugs herself tight around the middle before continuing. "But I think maybe, now that I know, it could be better. That I understand what it's like for him. When he wakes up, I'll tell him. He won't like that it was done to me, but he'll like that someone knows."

Steve's never been very tactile, that was Bucky's preference, but the movement makes her look so small, and though she's the same age, now that he's seen her as a younger Barnes, he can't push down the feeling that comes with it. He unwraps her arms, just one, to hold her hand. Natasha leans into him, her head falling softly on his shoulder. Their hands are both clean by now, but Steve knows they forever be stained with Bucky’s blood.

Like he did with Peggy, he tries to convey all his gratitude in as little words as he can. For caring for, for loving, for wanting a better life for Bucky when Steve wasn't around.

“Thank you.” 

They sit there, both of them finding solace in the touch from the wrong person.

A soft chime lets them know that someone is approaching, and Tony enters, drawn and pale.

Steve can’t ask the question.

Natasha does. “How is he?”

“Statistically, the same amount of chance of coming good from this as Steve or Lazarus,” Tony replies with a grimace.

“They both did well,” Natasha states, but its a question, a sort of childish hopefulness in it.

“If he'd let us know more about him before all this, the doctors would have a better idea, or any idea. I'm sorry," he says, shaking his head a little. With a sigh, and a shake of his head, Tony looks at Steve and says, "You can go see him now.”

Steve needs no more encouragement than that, and hurries as fast as his crippled body will take him down the few floors to the medical level.

It’s only in the quiet that Steve isn't sure if he can face what's happened to Bucky alone. He contemplates waiting for Natasha or Pepper, or asking Jarvis, but he's never been strong enough to resist the pull Bucky has on him, and certainly not in this state. It's agony for Steve, being so near yet so far, so he enters the sterile room.

But it's not Bucky in the bed.

It's a stranger. An alien, a million times worse than the Not-Quite Bucky that woke Steve only three weeks ago.

In a horrible irony, it's only Bucky's hair that Steve can identify, though even that is matted and charred in places.

Steve stands in the doorway, unable to enter further, and tries to take in the sight from a distance, praying for his eyes to recognise any other part of Bucky.

But it's useless. Even on the table, after weeks of torture and what else Steve still doesn't know, he was still Bucky.

Here, his face is too sunken, his ears black, nose with more bumps on it than Steve remembers. It's an amalgamation of injuries from both the Soldier's knife and the mushroom that reached the heavens he originally thought Bucky was in. The bits Steve relied on knowing are now marred by modern technology and medicine; there's a cast like Steve's own on Bucky's ankle, tubes down Bucky's throat and up his nose, leaving his right hand and a different threading in to the unharmed side of his stomach, though still bruised an eggplant purple and radish red until it hides under the bandages stuck to his skin. There's one plastered to his right side, where he was sliced open so easily, another on the right of his neck where metal dug in, and all around his heart where the Soldier did his damage and Natasha desperately tried to undo it. Noticeably, even with all the trauma, it's prominent that Bucky has lost weight somehow. Steve wants to believe that it's blood, but he can see bags of it being pumped in through the tubes. Bucky's bones stand out in a way that Steve hadn't noticed through clothing, poking painfully at the bruises and burns Steve can see once he skims over the body again. The worst is his face, the whole reason for how unknown Bucky seems right now; it looks no more than skin stretched taut over a skeleton.

And then, once Steve's catalogued all that he can, his eyes land on the arm. He's tried so hard to think of it as Bucky's this whole time, because Bucky does, but it’s not really, not as Steve knows it, and it's a part of his life that Steve wasn’t there for. It's not the arm, but where it attaches that once again tries to bring bile up through his obstructed oesophagus, as Steve gets his first good look that is the horror Hydra left behind. It’s a cap of metal, over his shoulder and half the pec, with a slightly thinner layer that Steve understands slides under the skin. He thinks back to the scans he saw, in Tony’s lab, before he learnt just quite how Bucky came to be this way, and thinks that it must do so to attach into Bucky's body further. The lights were on his ribs, his spine, parts of his scapula in the picture. It fits cleanly, the skin layering almost imperceptibly, but he also thinks that’s Tony’s work, that at one point it might not have. Because Bucky’s skin around the joint is red and raised, ugly and angry. Not just where the skin kisses metal, but down his chest too, disappearing under the new wounds from Hydra. They're long, finger like stripes that Steve realises are just that; he can see the indents where Bucky must have tried to ply his fingers underneath the metal and pull it off, failing, instead clawing at his own skin.

It makes him sick amongst other things, and he finds that, finally, the serum has run out of tears for him to cry.

He sits on the padded chair from the corner, pulling it closer, but Steve doesn't even want to touch, because he knows Bucky will be cold, not the warm that thawed Steve these past few weeks. Steve can see the blood, in the bags, but he's afraid he won't feel in thrumming through his veins, that Bucky will _feel_ like a stranger to him, not just look like one.

Instead, Steve curls into the smallest space his giant body will let him on the chair and inspects the machines he doesn't understand. With it comes an overwhelmingly nostalgia for the battlefield; on the front, he knew that blood was bad, blood was death, but these robots, he doesn't know if they're helping or hurting. There's no measure from Bucky either, no even breathes or steady heart beats because though Steve doesn't know much, he knows the machines are doing that for Bucky.

Steve would do anything to have his whole, flesh and blood Bucky back right now. But he knows, for that to be the case, in 2011, that Bucky would be truly dead. Not just half dead and unwilling to hang on.

So he resigns himself to watching between the machines and Bucky's body. It does nothing, it's the most painful way to pass the time he's tried so far, and when Steve finally feels his body replace the tears he'd done so well to exhaust, he mutters, “If this is payback, I will literally kill you myself, you little shit.”

He hadn’t even heard them approach, but Clint laughs in a slightly hysterical way, and Tony looks shocked, adding, “Did you just swear?” He blinks a few times at Steve, then frowns. “No, no, take that back. You can’t swear. Captain America doesn’t swear.”

"Just Steve, Tony," Natasha says and pats his shoulder as she weaves around him, no qualms about entering the room like Steve had.

The tears spill again, at her words, and at the group that has gathered to keep Bucky company through the night.

They don’t speak, just sit in a silent grief and worry. Clint eventually falls asleep face down, forearm as a pillow and his back one for Natasha. Tony pulls in the long bench Steve had used before, wiped of all blood and winds up snoring, but Steve can’t, afraid that if he looks away from the figure in the bed and the technology tethering him to life, the machines will stop working and Bucky will die.

So he doesn’t.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *TW for more medical talk.  
> It's all researched, but I ain't a doctor (I do have a health background though). Also, it's super heroes. Best to approach it with a, "Hey! It's fanfic! Everything works"

Though it's not what Steve knows, the rhythmic wheeze and the gentle beeps from what Steve’s learnt is a device called an ECMO becomes soothing by the time dawn breaks, only because Steve knows that the noise means that the machine has not proclaimed Bucky dead. The night team of nurses agree, simply stepping over and around the splayed team every half hour, and the doctors further offer no last rites every four hours.

But Bucky looks no better.

Steve is sure he’s not so pretty himself, not having slept the night. In fact, no one in the group looks well even though they managed at least a few hours, and it's a somber sort of mood in the room when they remember what it is that they're waking too.

“We should,” Steve swallows, barbed wire scratching at his throat. “We need to tell Becca. His family…”

“They’re going home today, Steve. S.H.I.E.L.D will continue to keep an eye on them for a little while.”

“That’s not what I meant. They need to know.”

Tony shakes his head. “Bucky doesn’t want them to. It’s always been this way; they only find out after the facts, if at all.” Steve stares in horror, and Tony just shrugs despondently. “He doesn’t want to worry them.”

It's a terrible thought in his head, and he's almost too afraid to whisper it into existence. But, for Becca, who may be his only family left soon, he has to. “But what if they don’t get to say goodbye?”

Tony looks at him like he understands but is also aggrieved by it. “I don’t agree with it, but it’s what Bucky wants. We generally like to respect the few choices he makes around here.”

It's a fairly profound statement to make, and it resonates in the small room. Steve could definitely make enough arguments to fight it, and win - he's been more stubborn over less - but something's almost wrong with him. It's not that he doesn't have the fight in him, after a night of no sleep and worry gnawing at his mind and burning through his brain, it's that he doesn't _want_ to.

The lack of will is happening more and more often lately, and Steve knows why.

The part of him that cares to try, to right all the wrongs in the world, fell off the train when Bucky did. It's why he crashed the plane in the first place, and because it didn't get frozen with him, it's likely back in nineteen-forty-five in the Alps. Or perhaps latched onto Bucky, and that's why he's so pig-headed about absolutely everything, when Steve has let things slide in this century that he normally wouldn't have.

Steve knows that last part isn't true, but hopes it's true enough that Bucky will be as stubborn about staying alive as he is about eating.

The doctors for the day, at least, look fresh and revived when they enter the room not much later, but shocked at whatever the machines have told them.

There's a tense moment until the doctor explains, “It’s not necessarily a bad thing. He did well overnight, better than we thought he should. It does mean we’ll have to do more surgery than we originally wanted, because he’s started to heal wrong in a few places that we thought we could get away with until today.” Steve can’t help the gut-punch of air that leaves him, even when the doctor adds, “Overall there are a lot of promising signs.”

As they continue to look him over, to reevaluate what they need to do for Bucky today, Steve goes back to watching, and listening for the rhythm of life. The parts that aren’t covered in bandages from burns or slices are a sort of plum colour. It seems Steve got his wish; the blood is now back in Bucky’s body but pooling under the skin, not flowing around his veins and through a working heart, and he hates it as much as the alternative.

Pepper brings in a trolley food of breakfast goods for them all, and though Steve hasn't eaten in a day now, even with the serum, he doesn't want to. He’s not sure he could anyway. His throat, though better than yesterday, still burns with every swallow of his own saliva and it hurts to breathe in a way that pneumonia never did. He’s somewhat convinced he vomited in his mouth as he was shocked and it bubbled and boiled away the lining, it's the only reasoning for this amount of pain. The thought of putting anything else down it almost calls back the tears. Or maybe that’s just a result of Pepper’s hands carding through his hair, moving in time as he shakes his head to the food offered. She prompts and pushes, and it's not until she pleads, a gentle and empathetic sound, that Steve makes a small attempt.

It's not good. On top of the pain, the warm of the scrambled eggs reminds him of the burning, and he shivers, jolts more like it, as if the electricity is back.

It’s such a violent reaction to the heat hitting his throat that Pepper’s hand draws backwards quickly. The heat of food is replaced with shame, and guilt, he wants nothing more than to drop his head into his hands, to rub at his eyes, but the casts on both hands stop him from doing so. Just as he thinks about doing it anyway, what's a little more pain on top of it all, the doctor comes for him and needs his arms for examination.

“Is there anything at all you’d be happy to oblige us in order to ensure we can care for you properly, now that you seem to be a reoccurring patient?” It's a different doctor, the one he remembers from the other - he doesn’t know when. But he knows her. She gave him a lollipop, after the first fight with the soldier. Helen, her name badge says, but her face says unimpressed.

He's not accustomed to strangers treating him with this sort of disdain in this body. Americans, at least. In fact, it reminds him of school, when he'd get in trouble for not knowing the math or science he should after being off for months with sickness. He's not capable of feeling much right now that isn't related to Bucky, but he can't help but take a slightly petulant tone. It helps that Pepper is here, a sure presence of his mother to have his back or console him through his upset.

“I don’t know much, exactly. I only know that Dr Erskine said the serum would create a protective system of regeneration and healing, on top of the abilities, is all. Peggy said that my metabolism was four times faster than an average human’s." Helen, and her nursing companion Molly, he remembers, and the small team that have gathered around Bucky again stare at him, slowly blinking. It's not much, he wonders if its not enough to be helpful, and he adds, "I've walked on a dislocated knee definitely less than a week after, maybe even a few days, and about the same for the skin of a through and through bullet wound to close over. It's fast enough that sometimes I can feel it, the skin knitting, and the pain fades pretty quickly. It's not instant, or pain free. I can't catch infections anymore, but I'm not immune to poisons and I've never tried a rot so I'm not sure how that would go. It was made very clear that I'm not invincible.”

They continue to stare, and without a following admonishment, he realises that they're in shock. Steve doesn't think he'll ever get used to it, the marvel at the serum's ability, he can feel it heating his cheeks.

"Went from one spectrum of health to the other," he shrugs lamely, and looks away from their gazes.

"Don't take it personally, Steve. They really are just blind on all this. On the rare occasions Bucky does get hurt, he self treats, certainly doesn't kiss and tell. He won't let anyone see the records, and since Project Rebirth was technically shut down, there aren't any on you other than old army reports. I don't blame Bucky for not wanting doctors near him, but that's more information we've been able to get in, hell, forty years.”

Bucky said he didn't want the SSR to know incase they make him into a dancing show girl as well, but Steve knows there's more at stake here than that. He swallows, immediately regretting being so defensive. Pepper can tell, her hands back in his hair, and either so can Tony, or she makes a face at him above Steve's head.

"All these guys are vetted, thoroughly, by me. And believe me, _I_ have trust issues. They only want to help, and what you've just told us won't only help you, but Bucky as well. It's at least a ballpark for them to aim for, but is there anything else? Anything you know about Bucky specifically?"

Steve shakes his head, wishing he did. He tries anyway, to think of anything that Bucky shared with him during the war that could help Steve, but everything is either only a whisper of a doubt that Bucky wasn't quite as fine as he insisted he was during those eighteen months, or hypothetical since he woke up three weeks ago.

“I don’t know anything about Bucky’s. I didn’t even-, I wasn’t even _sure_ until now. The whole time in Europe, he hid it, he didn't want anyone to know, it-”

Tony claps Steve’s shoulder, and squeezes tight to calm his rambling. “It’ll be enough. It’ll help.”

Natasha looks impassive the whole while, and he wonders if she knows, if there's anything she could tell them to help, but is choosing not to. And _why_ she would choose that.

Helen continues on fretting over Steve. “We can find out exactly if you’ll allow us blood samples, but even if we can monitor your broken bones daily, we’ll get a good idea. I can imagine you’ll be out of this,” she knocks on the hard cast, “before the six weeks we normally recommend. If you don’t damage them further in the meantime,” she says with a pointed look. Clint sniggers, to signify it's likely warranted.

Steve nods, then nods again when she asks if it still hurts. “Well, I’m afraid with a metabolism like that, there’s not much we can give you that will help.”

He’d expected as much, and if anything, he welcomes the pain, a nice distraction from Bucky, and undoubtedly deserved.

But-

“What’s Bucky got then?” He wonders aloud.

The doctors in the room collectively grimace.

“He’s not on anything?” Steve asks, loud in his own ears, the amount of air it takes causing issue to his throat. “You did surgery on him, and he was _awake?_ "

Pepper attempts to pull him back down by the elbow, he didn’t even notice he stood, but her ministrations have outlived their usefulness. Not for this.

“He was very much unconscious.”

“How do you know that?” Steve demands.

“Firstly, because there was not enough blood flow to the brain for even someone of his, your, caliber, to be awake. And if he was, that much pain would, likely,” Steve growls, “make someone pass out.”

“They didn’t really have a choice, Steve,” Tony says from somewhere beside him.

That’s-.

True.

He sits back down, lucky the casts stop him from gripping his hands tight around the chair’s armrests. He doesn’t care for breaking the bones further, but Tony might object to more property damage. As logical as it is, he doesn’t like the trade off of Bucky being in that much pain, in order to live. He has no doubt Bucky’s endured enough pain, and Steve may have just compounded it.

And still has to.

But the only other option was letting him die, and Steve-. He can't. Not again.

“He’s unlikely to wake, Steve,” Tony continues. “He’s too weak, his body doesn’t have the strength to beat a heart, let alone keep him awake. Even he has limits. And the more they can fix while he’s like this, the quicker the recovery and less pain he’ll be in when he does wake.”

It's not much; Natasha cut open his whole chest and pumped his heart, and that alone will be excruciating. Rather, it’s the ‘when’, the absolute surety despite no inclination from the doctors or Bucky that he will actually live through this, that calms Steve. Relatively.

He nods, and focuses on Pepper’s hand on his back, allowing himself to slump down into the chair again. Appeased, the doctors continue to look over Bucky. He watches until they've finished deciding what needs to be done, listens as they plan, and obligingly moves his seat out to sit at the window once they need to being their surgeries.

“You’re smart,” Steve mumbles to no one in particular, knowing Tony will catch it.

“It has been said.”

“Are you smart, like this?”

Tony steps into his view. “Stevie-”

“Don’t call me that,” Steve gruffs, then breathes in and out, hard, through his nose. “Please. You made Bucky an arm. Surely you can make some tonic or pain medication. Anything.”

Tony considers him. “I'm an engineer, a mechanic, a physicist. Pharmacology is not easy, even I’ll admit that. Pharmacology is barely easy in an average human that’s been studied extensively for the past several hundred years, and has tried and true tested methods.”

It sounds like a no. Steve breathes in and out again, and Pepper’s pressure on his shoulder increases. “Surely you’ve been curious at some point?”

He watches as the doctors cut into Bucky, and the knowledge that he could wake at any time makes Steve feel like it's himthat's being cut into.

Tony scratches at the back of his head. “Well, actually, yes. And it’s beautiful. On paper. But Bucky’s never let me near him for anything other than arm maintenance. We’ve never come up with pain killers, let alone a full on general anaesthetic or sedation. And even if we did now, and he allowed it, I’m not sure his body could handle it if we got the slightest balance wrong in the state that he's in currently. It’s touchy science Steve.” 

Steve only hears no again. He doesn't want this for Bucky, but a little selfishly, knows that he won't handle seeing Bucky silently suffer like those long months after Krausberg. This, for Steve at least, is undoubtedly worse.

He swallows, the pain a reminder, a motivator. “Can’t you test it on me?”

Peppers grip doesn't increase in pressure, but tightens. Natasha and Clint look like they expected nothing else.

"We don't actually know how similar you and Bucky are. Besides from the carbon date."

This time, when Tony considers him, Steve doesn't see or hear a no. Tony looks like he's looking for a favourable argument, to be convinced, and if there's anything Steve is good at, it's arguing. “

You said people have tried to make a serum, and no one’s succeeded, that Bruce is the closest?” He doesn’t wait for confirmation, he knows he’s right. “Well, if Bucky and I are the only two, then surely we must be similar, in some respects. The ones that matter, at least.” Steve has no idea how medicine works, except that it’s seemed to so far, but keeping Bucky from death isn’t enough. “Try it as much as you need on me. Take what you need from me, to work it out.”

Tony looks like Steve just handed him his sixty-six missing birthdays and Christmases. “I knew I'd like you.”

Tony seems pretty confident; he's obviously been more than a little curious. Confident enough that it'll work, and work well. But he makes it clear that they can push, but not push and push. Apparently Bucky's limit is clear and low, and there's nothing more important than Bucky's freedom to say no. At least this way, they have options, and it'll help Steve in the meantime, or the future.

Steve agrees but not wholeheartedly. He can win arguments against Bucky, and he has to, for this.

And in this room, it's a constant reminder that it's only _if_ Bucky wakes up, not matter what other option people use in conversation.

Steve goes back to watching Bucky, eyes desperate on the machine’s steady motions rather than the open skin that the doctors are working on. At some point he spies Clint move to the roof, and almost smiles at him. Almost; he looks so comfortable that Steve wants to try it, despite his slight aversion to heights. Natasha and Pepper sit either side of Steve, Pepper working from a laptop, Natasha still as a marble statue. Tony comes and goes, as do more doctors, who ask as many questions as they can about what Steve knows his body to do. He tries, tells them all he knows from the war, and to each answer they primp and prime him, and take his blood. Though it seems like a betrayal, that Bucky apparently doesn’t want this, is terrified of this so much he kept it from even Steve, he adds, “Whatever you find, I’m sure Bucky’s is better. Stronger, more of it, he was better than me to start with, any of those.”

At some point during the day, Pepper manages to get Steve to eat some ice cream. He feels ridiculous - sitting on a plush bench with hands that still feel slick with blood, licking at vanilla from a spoon while Bucky is in pieces just feet away - but Pepper gently reminds him that he won’t be able to look after Bucky when he wakes if he’s not well himself. It’s no Sundae from the ice cream parlor on the way home from school, but it’s nice all the same, soft enough to eat with a splinted hand and cools his raging throat.

And anyway, the doctors are finished before Steve’s made any sort of dent in the tub Pepper sat in his lap. He stands as they exit, their faces impasse.

“That’s all we can do. He needs to do the rest.”

It's his own Soldiered blow. He'd heard something not dissimilar when his mother was sent off to the sanitarium.

But it's the future now, and that doesn't seem good enough. Steve wants them back in there, to fix Bucky themselves. Steve knows how hard it is, to fight, to try to get better, to be so weak. Of all the times he was sick, he was just glad it was never Bucky having to feel like that.

“Can he?” Tony asks.

“Depends.”

“On?”

“How long he sleeps, and how much he doesn’t do once he’s awake. The longer he sleeps, the more time we can get before his defiance sets in, the better he can heal. When he wakes, we can't give a determinate time, but there will definitely be a long period of bed rest.”

“When will he wake?” It's still Tony. 

The doctor sighs. “Considering he wasn’t conscious during all of that, I’m really not sure. It’s up to him. He’ll wake when he wants to, and not when our science or whatever you want to call what happened to him, decides.”

“If that's the best we'll get, we'll take it. Anything else?”

“Yes,” the doctor says, and turns to Steve, who freezes. This won’t be good. “When was the last time he ate? Something substantial, I mean.”

Steve doesn’t answer; he thinks it's fairly obvious. Even if they didn't know Bucky, it's not exactly like they could have missed the prominent bones while trying to stitch him up.

“Think over the last seven days.”

Tony snorts, “That’s easy. Nothing. And make that seventy years.”

“I’m sorry Mr Stark, I'm afraid this is rather serious.”

“Barely anything all week,” Steve thinks to just how much he’d let Bucky get away with, by not pressing. It cements his resolve, not only with food but with pain relief. “Maybe coffee, two days ago. Some rice, on the plane. Why?”

“Nutrition is an important factor in healing, but in his case, too much food too quickly could be just as bad. Especially with his heart like this. It could do so much harm as to kill him.”

Steve doesn't have the words to ask.

“You wouldn’t have known about this. They only discovered it from the Japanese prisoners of war in World War II in fact ” - Steve doesn’t care - “It’s called Refeeding Syndrome. Changes in metabolism lead to electrolyte and fluid imbalance. The body is so starved for what it’s been missing that it drinks it in, but there’s too much of a delicate balance. It can cause heart failure, collapsing in the lungs, seizures, amongst a few. These are all things I’m cautious of even without the refeeding risk, but combined, well...”

Bucky will die without food, but will die with it.

The doctor back-pedals quickly at Steve’s face. “He’s not the first, Captain Rogers, and he won’t be the last. We’ll just need to monitor him closely, and he’ll require a vitamin regime and slow introduction to food. It will slow down his healing substantially as nutrition is essential, and he requires a large amount right now, especially if his metabolism is like yours. For the first few days we’ll keep him on a low caloric intake, just be aware not to expect as much improvement as you'd like, but it's increased daily. Although, with his enhancements, we may even be able to increase it more often. I imagine when he wakes he'll refuse foods, which is another issue we’ll have to manage as it comes, as it could not only delay recovery but send him back into refeeding.”

There’s truly nothing then, that can help Bucky.

“And the actual surgery?” Tony asks after a short silence.

At this, all the doctors nod. “As we mentioned, his body healed itself quite a bit overnight, which both aided and hindered us. But no matter. We’ve managed to close up all the wounds inflicted by the knives and your first aid attempts. His heart and lungs are capable of performing on their own. Fourteen per cent of his body is covered in first or second degree burns, which will add time to his healing, but his body seems to be able to fight the infections they keep obtaining for now. There’s some swelling to his brain, but with a high salt saline treatment, we’re hoping it will reduce. We’ll continue to monitor it closely, and if not, we can drain some of the fluid. Any lasting effects from that, we can't predict. We’ll need to assess properly once he’s awake. We’ve completely reconstructed his ankle, and he’s sprained a few ligaments in his knee but not torn any, so they should heal, as they do in a regular human. There’s an abundance of abdominal trauma, we’ve removed his appendix, but we’ll also need to monitor his liver and watch for internal bleeding.”

Steve feels himself drawing away from reality. None of this sounds good.

“We’ll keep the ECMO on for a little while longer to take the stress off the rest of his body, especially at refeeding risk. We'll start a nutrition regime and monitor it hourly, because he'll get nowhere without calories, but I can't tell you how long it'll take until he's breathing by himself again. Once we’re sure his cerebral odema has reduced and we’ve taken him off the ECMO, I’d prefer to move him to his own room to recover there, as long as we still have access to his care. Once he’s up and awake, his best chance at recovery is plenty of rest, to remain comfortable, and if you can convince him to let us in every once in a while. It’ll be a rough road, but he’s very promising.”

Steve sinks into the chair, legs giving way more than the electricity caused him.

The doctors leave, and once again, the room is free. Steve knows, he can walk in, and claim his spot next to Bucky, but he’s not sure he can move at the moment.

“He’ll be okay?” Steve questions in a whisper, just to be sure.

“The doctors say promising results, but that’s usually so they don’t get sued for making false promises. Bucky’s healing usually does more than they expect. He’ll be okay,” Tony promises.

Seems like a cause to eat ice cream, after all, even if it is a bit tasteless. Tony thinks so, and grabs a spoon to eat from the tub. “Come on,” he says. “I know you want to get in there.”

He does, and though Steve could even with broken hands, Clint pulls his armchair in for him. Steve curls up immediately. It's not the lack of sleep, but his exhaustion hits him all at once.

“We got a lot more flavours these days,” Tony says around a mouthful.

It takes him time to understand the comment is for him. But about-, “What?”

“Ice cream. You name it, we got it. There's even flavours you don't want.”

He really doesn’t care. “Vanilla’s fine.” Tony faux yawns. “I don’t care much for the taste. Think my buds are burnt anyway, so it's really just the cold.”

“Oh,” Tony says, and frowns at him. “Okay. Ice cubes, then.”

He looks to Pepper for translation but she gives a sympathetic shrug.

“Bucky won’t like tubes in him, needles, or anything resembling treatment in any way. His throat is busted pretty bad too, so I’ll make the medication into ice cubes. Seeing as you’re being my guinea pig, it’ll suit you both,” Tony explains, and it squeezes at Steve’s heart.

He just nods.

There's nothing else much to do than to wait, and though he wants Bucky to sleep as long as possible so that he has time to heal, and for Tony to be closer to medication, it's excruciating; worse than the shock. He doesn't even want to reach out, even now knowing Bucky should be closer to life than death, but he's worried the touch could wake him before it's time. 

Whatever his face is makes sure no one tries to speak to Steve much the rest of the day, and he’s grateful. If they speak, he could miss something, and after he realises that they're only asking if Steve is okay, he realises they have nothing useful to add. Everyone else comes and go, Pepper leaving for work and Tony hopefully to manufacture super medication. Clint and Natasha at least shower, and both come back looking far more relaxed than Steve can ever imagine being ever again in his life. 

Pepper brings yogurt for lunch and custard for dinner, but Steve doesn’t care for the taste enough to override his lack of appetite, and only cares a little for Pepper’s disappointed face when he doesn’t eat.

Steve spends the second night alone with Bucky; the rest of the group is apparently more confident in Bucky’s ability to make it through the night now without their vigilance. Steve can't. He doesn’t trust the doctors, the future, any of it, as much as they do. He's not even sure how much he trusts Bucky right now. So Steve now deliberately tests the limits of the serums ability to avoid sleep; he knows Bucky can go at least five days, and so far Steve’s sitting fine on two. Sure, his vision is a bit blurry and his heart hurts and he doesn’t have the energy to eat, let alone move from the chair, but he knows that’s nothing to do with sleep deprivation.

It seems Tony might not have slept much either, because the next morning, there's a cup of ice cubes with Pepper's breakfast, and dark circles under his eyes. Tony's movements are a little erratic, and Steve knows the cup of coffee in his hand is far from the first, judging by the smell that seems to be emanating from his pores.

“You still hurting?”

Steve can't deny that his burnt throat and crushed wrist, though his hands have reduced to a dull ache. This concern, at least is helpful, and it's for Bucky. Steve nods. Even if he wasn’t in pain, he could just punch a wall again. Or Tony might get a thrill of throwing him against the wall. He almost tells him.

“Wrap your laughing gear around this,” Tony says with a large smile, holding out the cup.

Pepper is apologetic and says, “Stark Industries is doing business with Australia at the moment. It’s not a new age thing, just a Tony thing.”

Steve hasn’t laughed in a long time now, but he takes one all the same. Considering how well Bucky chewed him out for signing up for experiments last time, and how little information he was able to pass along yesterday when it was required, he stares at it a little, and asks, “What exactly is it?”

“Human equivalent is fentanyl. You wouldn't know it yet, but it can be up to a hundred times stronger than morphine.”

“I’ve only ever seen morphine used to take lives, not save them,” Steve says, three weeks ago his reality.

“That’s called an overdose. Very much not the plan, here. Which is why we’re going to start with just one ice cube, and monitor how you react. We’ve determined a theoretical safe limit for you is four of these an hour, but it’ll still be better to test it, in case there’s an exponential effect, or anything else. They're fast acting, so it'll need to be every hour. One should take the edge off the pain, two might dull it, three should feel great and with four, you’ll probably be as high as a kite. I’d like to say you can’t get addicted, we’ll stay with four for as many hours as you need, buuuut,” Tony draws it out, “best to start with just the one, for now.”

Steve nods, and lets them hook him up to a machine. At some point, the doctors tell him they’ll take a blood test, but for now he just has to sit still and suck on some ice until they tell him to stop.

It doesn’t even taste, not like the awful syrups he used to have to swallow. It’s literally just an ice cube, and it’s barely a few minutes in that Steve nods. “Good,” he says.

“How so?”

“Just, seems less. Not gone, not numb, just-, less,” he finishes lamely.

Tony seems pleased, and he’s since learnt the doctors helping are actually pharmacists. “Excellent! Just hang tight a minute.” They take a blood test, inspect it a little, and check the numbers on the screen against a light in his eye and his breathing.

“How do you feel about another?”

It can’t seem to hurt him. In fact, technically, it might do the opposite. 

Besides, he asked them to do this, and it's for Bucky. Better he overdose than Bucky, and at least Bucky won't be around to see.

Steve tries another, and he thinks it’s a compounding effect, because the pain is all gone soon after. “Real good,” he says, and though he has no reason to, the corners of his mouth curl up. He almost feels the relaxed he saw yesterday in Natasha and Clint, and much more than he ever could seeing Bucky torn apart and stitched right back up.

Tony smiles back. “Well. Weeellll,” he sings again. “Just one more,” he prompts, and slips Steve another ice cube.

This one is even better. Steve feels like he’s _floating_. Not that weird awful floating that time he drew a mean picture on the stairs. This is _happy floating_. He doesn’t even like heights, but this isn't so bad- it's great. He can smile now. He hasn't smiled in a long time, the tight in his face feels like. 

“Okay, we were good to start it slow,” the nearest doctor to him says. She has nice hair. Fluffy, like a duck. But not yellow. “I’m still confident with four as a limit, if you'd like to try another. I’d be curious about Mr Barnes extent of injuries and if his body differs.”

Mr Barnes.

Oh, Bucky.

 _Bucky_.

Steve’s smile drops.

“Yeah, there’s that. And also, Steve, keep in mind he’s unlikely to take them. If we force it, we’re no better than them. But I think you might have a few tricks up your sleeve.”

Steve makes a pitiful sound.

"Tony," Pepper says gently.

"Yeah, alright. Later. Another? For science," Tony says, so Steve takes another.

For Bucky. Not Tony's science. 

Tony's science and Bucky's being okay-ness keeps Steve sucking on four cold cubes an hour to check that there's no ill effects with long term use. Pepper, lovely, beautiful, clever but conniving Pepper, uses the chance to spoon some sort of gloop into his mouth between the stories he suddenly needs to tell her. He doesn't know exactly what's saying, but it pinks her cheeks and the tip of her nose, and Tony laughs. The pink brings out the freckles, and he accepts the gloop to keep the dots close, because without them, and without Bucky, he thinks bad things could happen.

Tony tells him after three hours they can stop the tests, but Steve is welcome to the painkillers if he'd like. They hold off giving him more until enough logic creeps back in to make a decision, and he does not like. He sticks firm in his decision, not even when the burn comes back, and doesn't ask anyone to repeat what he said. Ignorance is his shield in this hospital, and he can't afford not to be in control of himself or his body, should Bucky decide to suddenly do anything.

Steve spends the rest of the day curled in the same chair, not talking to anyone, not accepting any more ice cubes, until late afternoon when Tony comes in with a set of tools and begins to fiddle with the metal arm.

“What are you doing?” He demands. Tony, the doctors, they all said Bucky would be _okay_.

“I think, when all blew to hell, it might have knocked him a bit. That’s what I’m guessing the brain trauma is from, because I didn't see any head hits. As for the arm, I'm just going to readjust the sensors and take out some of the unessential parts so it takes some weight off his spine while he's still healing. and hopefully ease some of the pain. He shouldn't, shouldn't being the key word, be walking for a while, so the balance won't be an issue."

"Why his spine?"

Tony sighs in reluctance to answer. "They didn't just Nancy Ann his arm on, Steve. Where muscles and nerves, and bones even, attach and are proportional to what they're meant to be, the first arm they tried wasn't so much. Rather than actually look at anatomy, or weight imbalance, or anything humane, they just anchored it to his spine, his ribs and his clavicle.”

Sans painkillers, it pulls an awful sound out of his throat that rips the whole way up.

"He's never wanted me to, and I've not had the means before now, because thanks to you we're also close to something to sedate him. But when I started looking at how to improve it, there was never anything I could do about the internal parts. So I just worked out what I could do for the exterior. He says it's enough."

Tony removes a few plates on top, and it's a delicate intricacy of wires inside. Because Bucky no longer has an arm, thanks to Hydra. "I want you to stop."

“Steve,” Tony sighs, and looks him in the eye to do so. “It’s okay. This,” he waves, “is no more than routine. It’s like how you, well normal people, have to brush their teeth every day or risk cavities, or exercise for heart disease. I know you don’t like it, and I get why, but it’s part of him now. He’s going to be okay. Better, if I can just finish my fiddling.”

Steve still stares at the arm.

"Steve," Tony says again, gentle this time. "I've known Bucky my whole life, alright? That's forty-one years. I've been doing this for almost three quarters of it."

He thinks Tony means it for Steve to trust him, but what it actually is, is a cruel reminder that everyone Bucky now knows, has know him longer than Steve has. Even though Steve was there first.

He's twenty-seven, and is feeling more and more like a child each day in the future. He's gone from not being allowed to cook or leave the house without permission, to being chided for getting hurt, and told that he doesn't know all. And he's let it happen, let it affect him so that he needs a mother to hold him and even feed him, and he's getting pouty over who's been friends with Bucky longer.

Tony takes the deflation as permission to continue on Bucky's arm. 

It's not, but like the ice cubes, it's for Bucky. Not Steve.

Even as a child, Steve could give gratitude where it was deserved. “Thank you,” he says.

Tony understands. “As disgusting as it is, Hydra were pretty beyond their time. It was impressive, but crude. A weapon. I can’t undo all that has been done but I can make it a bit easier, even if said recipient grumbles about it.”

“He does appreciate it. The arm. He’s told me.” Then he reconsiders. “In not so many words.”

Tony smirks, and goes back to his work. “I’d expect as much.” Tony works in silence for a bit, and once near the elbow, he asks, “How you holding up?”

Steve just shrugs. He’s not sure there’s a word for it.

“We’ll need to discuss your tune up at some point, too,” Tony says lightly. 

“I don’t have one of those,” he offers unhelpfully.

Tony gives a disappointed sort of glare. “You know what I mean.”

“It’s only my arms that are injured,” Steve says as he waves his casts around. “Most of the burns from the shock have gone already. Throat feels mostly fine. The medication helped.” The medication he hasn’t taken since.

“Steve.”

“What?” He feels a little like Bucky, asking what all the time, to simple questions.

“You just underwent a very traumatic experience, after two years of traumatic experiences, after a pretty rough childhood.” Steve stares at him. “Where do you think I am when I’m not here? I’m screeching to my therapist. Or crying, whichever comes easier.”

This, at least, is starting to sound familiar, is something he can work around, and has had control over. “I don’t have PTSD,” Steve says, his voice still louder and braver than he feels.

“You and me both, Spangles.” 

“I don’t,” he insists again.

“Look, I won’t pretend to know what it was like in your day, though I have two actual first-hand accounts of it, plus I’m a genius, so I very much do know. But shellshock, depression, all those sorts of things that were frowned upon in your day, they're not anymore." Steve's heard this before. It's no better this time round. "If you're a bit out of sorts, it’s not a bad thing. You wanna know what is a bad thing? Dying, then coming back to life being dumped in an alien world in a future where everyone you mostly know is dead is a bad thing. And then, well, this,” he gestures towards Bucky, “is also a very bad thing. There’s a lot of bad things, and I’d just like to help give you a good thing, so that we can stop more bad things, say like, base jumping with out a chute, from happening.”

Tony likes arguing, and so does Steve. Not so much, right now, but hearing recent mentions of Hydra have given him enough renewed vigor. “I just told you what my body does, how it works. I gave you blood. You’ve watched Bucky heal right before your eyes, watched me come back from being frozen?” He waits until Tony nods, even though he knows, just to make his point. “Well, then if there was something wrong with my brain, it’d heal, wouldn’t it? There’s nothing I haven’t so far.”

He ignores the part that reminds him that the serum doesn’t fix all, he’d still looked at Bucky with his heart in his eyes the minute he found him on Zola’s table, held him a little too tight after he pulled him off. But there’s a part of him that always _wondered_ , that maybe it wasn’t a sickness-

“You said you and Bucky are alike. So tell me, has he always been like this?”

It slipped his mind that Tony was smart. And being raised somewhat by Bucky, knows how to fight dirty.

“What Bucky-, what happened with, that’s-”

“Don’t you dare say worse,” Tony mutters.

So Steve says nothing.

“My dear, sweet, Owen Legate, that’s not how trauma works. And in any case, doesn’t really explain what you were doing all by your lonesome on the Tower roof.”

He doesn’t owe Tony this. He just wants to sit at look at Bucky some more. Tony’s got a look like he’s not going to let it go though, and Steve wants to punch it right off him. Just, in a few days. When his hands are better. And he's settled enough to only break a nose, not a brain.

“So what, you talk about something that no one understands to someone you don't know, who will never understand, and then you're cured?”

“No, but it can help. And if you were willing, if we needed, we could start working on some medications, that could not only help you, but Bucky as well. Different from the pain killers. These are brain and trauma specific, to help with mood and thoughts."

That makes Steve still.

“You think there’s medication that can work on him?”

“It does well enough, in the general population.”

“How?” He still doesn’t know much about the future, nor trust it, but he knows medication worked well for his sicknesses in the past. And medication, that he could test before Bucky, sure sounds a heck of a lot better than a lobotomy, or being sent to an asylum, like the scariest of stories he heard.

“Sometimes, there’s an imbalance of chemicals in the body. The medications change it back to normal, and they can make the everyday life stuff not so difficult or upsetting. They can actually make things kind of bearable, and then, when you combine them with, say, a good therapist, can make living _good_ again. That's how we treat mental illness in the twenty-first century.”

 _Illness._ Sickness, is what Tony is talking about.

But for Bucky-

Steve sits on it, tempted to chew at his cheek like Bucky does. He’d have to sit on it a while, he thinks. And then sit on Bucky until he agrees. Only in his prime, Bucky could through him off. He wont be in his prime for a while, though, so maybe he'd have to decide soon.

It's all too much right now.

"Bucky tell you about me?

Steve rifles through the over load of Tony and sifts out what could be about. It's a soft and vulnerable question, and that limits the filter's range.

“You were kidnapped?”

“Three months. Torture, open heart surgery, slave labour, got held hostage to build a weapon of mass destruction, which, incidentally, turned out to be the first version of the Iron Man suit. Bucky was deep in cover on a good lead so he didn't know, but he was furious when he found out. That was- not good.” Tony falls silent, maybe a little pale. The dark under his eyes stands contrast, and stark. "I was a right mess after that. For a long time. I thought I could handle it myself, but I couldn't. Mostly, because I didn't exactly realise what it was I was trying to handle. Got it good with Pepper, she helped me see reason. It took a bit of hard work from me, a lot of therapy, but now I can handle high stress jobs, and high stress situations, and besides from that, I seem to be doing alright these days, don't ya think?"

"So therapy taught you how to save Bucky's life on the plane? Maybe I'll go to Natasha's therapy, if it's that good."

Tony doesn't appreciate the sarcasm as much as Bucky would. "I'd be careful what you say about that, when Natasha's around. But me, well. Had someone helping me. He saved my life, and told me not to waste it. Figured first aid was the least I could learn. I couldn't help him, so I help others.”

“Can't waste your life if it's saving others.”

“It's not saving. I don't know if you know this, but I'm smart.” Tony says it like a fact, because it is. “It doesn't take me long to learn things, and I usually get them right, most of the time. So I did as much emergency stuff as I could, I learnt as much as I could without actually doing the medical degree but, as much as it pains me to admit it, not everyone is good at everything. So I know my limits. I just hold them off until a real doctor gets here. Bucky – jeez, I feel sick saying this, but thank god Hydra gave him a serum, or he wouldn't still be here.”

Steve lets Tony finish tinkering in silence, until he’s down to the last fingertip.

“And thank god you’re here, and as stupid as Bucky always said, and willing to let us experiment on you. Because, as someone who went through just one surgery with no sort of relief, granted mine was in a cave, I don’t want to put that on him when he wakes up. God knows he's had enough pain for a few lifetimes.”

Steve stares at him.

“Something on my face?”

“It’s just-. I knew Howard." Steve swallows a different sort of pain. "Three weeks ago.”

“Oh, really? I had no idea. Never heard about that.”

His tone makes Steve uncomfortable, and he shifts in his seat. “You're similar enough to be disconcerting.” When Tony grimaces at that, Steve frowns. "I don’t understand. Howard was a good guy.”

“People change.”

Steve's mind unwillingly drifts to Peggy, his revelation of how S.H.I.E.L.D could be both so idly and actively involved with Bucky's past, and he pushes down those feelings.

“He was as bad as Peggy, you know,” and Steve hopes he didn't say that out loud, but Tony continues. “He looked for you. For years. And then, apparently, they cut his funding and work got in the way, and he got robots to do half, then looked as he could on his days off. Stopped in ninety-one, of course, after he died, but S.H.I.E.L.D thought they could honour both of you by keeping on. Guess either you were enough, or people didn't notice the change.”

With that, Tony leaves Steve alone in the room, with memories and feelings he doesn’t want.

Pepper comes before dinner, and tries to comfort him with mundane conversation. He appreciates it, he does, but he thinks he’s reached his limit, where the only thing that will truly help is Bucky. A limit that he reached, thousands of feet in the air, somewhere between Austria and New York, not so long ago.

So he stays, alone again in the room, curled into a position on the chair that he understands is uncomfortable. Alone, because it's only half of Bucky's body in the bed, and maybe even less of his spirit. Of the Bucky Steve knows, or knew, at least. But it's enough to keep him anchored, and when realises he's watching the machines with an intensity that he thinks they should catch fire, he stops so he can keep Bucky alive. Staring at Bucky is no better, in case Steve's gaze wakes him, so it's a constant flight between the two, because he knows the moment he looks away in the dark, is the moment that Bucky's soul could leave his body.

At the beginning of the next morning, with no sleep Steve’s eyes are burning worse than his throat, he draws out of his stare at the machines by their disrupted rhythm.

He starts, his heart stopping like the machines say Bucky’s has, but he must be manic with tiredness, because Tony just smirks and explains, “They’re happy with how he went overnight. The swelling in his brain has gone down, his heart and lungs should be alright independently with the healing that's gone on and with how he's tolerating the food so far. They're happy to move him to his room, he'll still be monitored, of course, but it'll be nicer for all of us to get out of here.”

“So he’ll wake soon?” It's barely a breath, but even to his ears, Steve sounds hopeful.

A nurse shakes her head. “Hopefully not. He needs to sleep to heal, and there’s still a lot of healing to go. But we can’t take the chance. If he wakes up here, he’ll be terrified. In his panic, he’s likely to cause catastrophic damage.”

“I can stop him,” Steve says, though he’s in no condition too. And even if he was, he still thinks Bucky is stronger than him.

“To himself,” the nurse says with an obvious tone.

He himself hates the hospital room, what he remembers of his own, and what it represents, so he nods. He doesn’t think they care for his opinion, but he pretends they do, and follows them to Bucky’s level.

Pepper appears not long after, and tsks when she does a once over at him the chair he's pulled over.

“When was the last time you slept?”

He shrugs. He doesn't know nor care.

“You need to sleep, Steve,” she says, both sadly and kindly.

It’s not dissimilar to the way he told Bucky, Bucky who’d gone five days before this. He’s not as strong as Bucky, he can’t fight it, or what it's doing to his mind or body. He would persevere for as long as he could despite Pepper's worry, but the need to be awake when Bucky does is too strong.

So he gets up to move to the couch, but Pepper stops him with a soft hand on his forearm. It’s barely pressure, but it stops him in his tracks.

“We have plenty of guest rooms, but I have a feeling he’d prefer to have you in his sights if he were to wake while you’re asleep.”

“I’m just going to the couch,” but she still shakes her head.

“I still think that would be too far. He’ll try to get up.”

Steve understands what she's asking of him, but he's not sure he can act. She must know, there's no other bed in Bucky's apartment and that's where Steve has been staying. She's not saying she cares either, but this time, it's not enough. Three weeks is not enough to override a mentality of twenty-seven years.

There's another fear, too.

“What if I hurt him?” He whispers. “What if something happens?”

“It’s a big bed. I’ll stay watch, just have a nap. A few hours, is all, and then it'll be your turn again. Fresh eyes will do you good."

With a guard, it's no different to Jim or Dugan taking first shift, he reasons. They slept back to back in the war with little consequence, so he breathed deep and tries to center himself somewhere in France. He liked France, as much as he could.

What is different, is when Pepper tucks him in, and sits on the side of the bed. It’s comforting, to have weight on either side of him, but he still can't sleep, not with a rattling that Steve recognises, but not from Bucky. The struggle for breathe, the lungs hitting ribs that almost slice through skin with each struggle should be coming from Steve, not Bucky. His own breathing hitches, that's a little better, and then Pepper, bless Pepper Potts and all good women like her, continues to run her fingers through his hair until his eyes can't fight even his stubbornness and shut. If he pretends hard enough, it is his own lungs making that noise, they're certainly in enough pain right now, and the warm is Bucky on couch cushions beside him and the fingers are Sarah's own.

Home.

He sleeps for much longer than he’d like, but Pepper assures him and Jarvis confirms that nothing happened in the few hours he was out. And he does feel more human, able to nibble at the lunch of sandwiches that Pepper brings.

With the human, also comes the escalating terror and despair for Bucky, and an exhaustion that the nap didn't rid.

It is shift work, he realises, when Tony takes over not long after. He has a feeling it's as much for him, as it is for Bucky.

“Pep says you haven’t been sleeping? Can’t, or won’t?”

“Does it really matter?”

“Yes. Eventually. But right now, we've got sedation worked out, but want to test it on you first, if you're still offering."

“How long for?” Steve asks, looking towards Bucky’s prone form, still connected to tubes, for feeding and fluids. It’s been three days, but in this room, he almost feels the air vibrating faster, meaning Bucky is going to wake soon.

“An hour. That’s all, I promise.”

He desperately doesn’t want to, but he wants for Bucky to rest, to get better, when he does actually wake, and it’s that reminder from Tony that he agrees to.

This one goes in by a needle in his hand, but that’s all Steve knows between then, and the nothingness he wakes up from to Tony’s thumbs up.

“Solid hour, as expected. Next stop, consent for all these wonderful creations.”

Steve feels worse from the sleep, because he knows it's not enough. But he doesn’t want to sleep more, in case Bucky wakes. When Bucky wakes.

Which doesn't happen soon, and Steve soon finds that he also doesn’t want to be awake, in this agony of time. He wonders if this is what Bucky felt like, those few days between Steve's own thawing and waking, the limbo, unsure if he would wake up, would be okay, would want to keep him around. It _is_ payback, but Bucky said Steve was asleep more than a week.

Steve can't wait a week.

He doesn’t really know what else to do, except sit beside him and not pray, but call on all faith he has in Bucky. His lips are so red, he never noticed how red, and he worries for a moment's it's blood but it's just the contrast against his pale skin and sunken cheeks.

It’s hard to ignore the hand that’s reaching out, as if Bucky needs Steve to grab it, like he did on the train. This time, Steve does. He slips off the splint in his right hand, and once he grasps Bucky, he vows never to let go. It’s Steve’s broken right in Bucky’s metal left, but it’s enough. He tries to be gentle, he really does, but he knows his grasp is too firm to be comforting, or more than anything other than a desperate hold, tight enough that Bucky could never fall into the alps with the strength of it. 

In truth, even in his unconsciousness, Bucky is grounding Steve more than he knows the other way around.

It’s not long after he grabs hold of Bucky that his face shifts and his breathing becomes slightly shallower. It's when the dancing underneath thin lidded eyes starts that Steve whispers to Tony;

“He’s waking." 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay. Life has been life-like, ya know?  
> On the plus side, I've had enough of my own share of medical hoorah that I can add in life like elements to how unbelievably shitty Bucky may or may not feel if all goes according to Steve's plan.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, um... whoops. Sorry!
> 
> *Please heed the mature themes tag peeps. TW is best encompassed by the word mature, but mentions of injuries, gore, death, suicidal ideations, dissociation and general ill mental health all throughout the chapter.*

“Oh shit,” Tony says, the opposite of what Steve thinks should be the appropriate reaction to Bucky waking, his proof of life. “I had hoped for another half day, at least. Every second is a smidge more nutrition and rest. He’ll make sure he gets neither from now on.”

Steve has brief visions of Bucky’s then crushing weight, of slim fingers pinching his nose painfully until a fever-wracked Steve opened up for a gasp of air and instead got mouthful after mouthful of stew. The memories disappear as quickly as they shimmer into view because Steve knows for sure that method won’t do in return. And he knows Tony is right; Bucky hardly eats or sleeps even when in a good mood.

There’s panic, for Steve - he wasted so much time waiting on Bucky to wake and didn’t prepare fully for what would actually happen once he did - but it seems to transfer through to Bucky where their hands are joined. Steve forces himself to relax his grip on Bucky’s metal hand, focusing on moving his thumb across the palm just as Bucky did to him. It’s a small goal, a simple one, though while it calms his own hysteria, Bucky’s own agitation only increases.

Tony grimaces. “He’s gonna-”

Bucky’s body is alert an instant, eyes still closed. He tenses, whole body stiff, as he pulls his hand from Steve’s and begins to claw weakly at the tubes down his throat and on his hand. Steve moves to stop the scrambling, but Tony stops him with a hand on his shoulder.

“Don’t. He’ll feel more comfortable, more in control when he’s fully aware. I don’t doubt he’s woken up similar to this, in less pleasant places,” and that’s all he needs to say on the matter. “I'll get the Doc. Just, keep him calm, keep him happy.” 

Wherever Bucky’s pulling his consciousness from is weak, not even enough yet for him to open his eyes, but it manages the flimsy needles in his wrist. When he gets to the nasogastric tube, he coughs and splutters for a moment before Steve realises he’s choking, or suffocating, as more of the slimy tube continues to emerge. Not sure whether his assistance would make it better or worse, Steve does nothing, instead reaches his hand to Bucky’s shin, continuing the rubbing there. In time with his thumb, he murmurs, “You’re okay, you’re okay.” It’s a continual litany of the same two words until the tube is completely out, because Steve can think of nothing else that could suffice. Once free of all medical devices, Bucky’s eyes flutter open, dilated but bleary with fear and pain.

In that moment, for the first time since Steve woke in this new future, he knows with absolute certainty what Bucky's thinking. Wild eyed and pleading, his throat bobbing, Steve can only think of a silent scream in a crisp, shared tent at night, the shaking, the one and only insight of Bucky’s time in Krausberg. Then the snap, the push away when Steve only tried to help, followed by a bitter spit of ' _You know what it's like knowing you’re gonna die choking on your own vomit? Cause I do.'_

“It's okay,” Steve says gently, but moving swiftly. He presses a hand over the bandage covering the stomach's stitches, the other over Bucky’s throat, and wishes he had another for the heart in case the stab wounds burst like a damn and spray like Steve had seen on the field, the image that threatens to replay when he dreams. Steve keeps the pressure firm as he rolls Bucky to his left side, his head hanging slightly off the mattress. Steve finds from there he can brace Bucky’s abdomen with his hip, and move that hand to over Bucky’s heart bandages. Bucky shudders a few times, then vomits, not food he’s willingly ingested, and it comes out a sludge that’s tinged green with assumed bile, and speckled with red and black that is both new and old blood.

“It’s okay, you’re okay,” Steve repeats, until the heaving is replaced by violent clenches of Bucky’s stomach, that Steve can feel on his hip. When they’ve subsided a little, Bucky tries to roll onto his back and push himself up.

“Please don’t,” Steve pleads, and pushes down gently on pointed shoulders to keep him flat. Bucky struggles against it, but his eyes aren’t focused on Steve, or anything. When the struggling becomes more of a desperate flail, Steve can’t be sure Bucky knows it’s him, it could be anyone restraining him, so he adds, “It’s me. It’s Steve.” The effect of his words, and actions, are negligible. Bucky gurgles some more, so Steve rolls him to his side again so he can spit out more of whatever wants to egress.

When the second bought passes, Steve pushes the hair off Bucky’s neck, off his cheek where it’s plastered to now clammy skin, but it does nothing to soothe, only spook. Bucky turns rigid, impossibly so, and tries to tense away from Steve, pressing hard into a mattress that can take him no further. The wild limbs have stopped, but not the shaking, Bucky vibrating so much Steve can almost _hear_ it.

Perhaps the contact hurt him; of course, everywhere would hurt. But Steve’s not sure even that’s it as he removes his hands, and Bucky watches them through torpid lids with a sort of suspicion, heaving breathes that don’t seem to be doing anything.

Steve’s helpless as to what to do. He can’t touch Bucky like he wants to, like Bucky helped him, and he knows his words aren’t being believed, so he sits, and waits, thankfully not long, until Tony returns.

“Where’s-” Steve starts in relief, but is cut off with a jerk of Tony’s head, once he gets a look of Bucky now awake.

Tony won’t even speak the word doctor around Bucky for fear of a worse reaction. To Bucky, he speaks clear, slow and carefully. “Bucky, it’s Tony. You bought me an Atari 2600 for Christmas when I was twelve, knowing full well I’d take it apart and never use it.”

Bucky makes no indication he hears, or believes, Tony either, but he continues anyway.

“Steve's here too. It's him, I defrosted him from the Artic myself. You’re in your apartment in Stark Tower, New York, following a fight with one of Hydra's Winter Soldiers. The fight occurred on April 7th. It’s now April 10th, 1:14 pm. The Winter Soldier was successfully eliminated via three bullets to the head, neck and heart by Natasha. It was an immediate execution. Natasha reports no injuries, neither Clint or I. Steve has thirteen metacarpal fractures across both hands, eight of which are compound fractures and the rest are stable, from previous and new injuries. His left ulna and radius suffered comminuted fractures from a crush injury, both are healing well. He has a non-displaced zygomaticmaxillary fracture, also healing well and didn’t require surgery. He was electrocuted with roughly four hundred milliamps for twenty-three seconds causing internal burns to his oesophagus and lungs, once again healing well with minimal medical intervention. No detected brain injuries. Besides from a monitored and non-disturbing ongoing arrythmia” – Steve didn’t know that, but it makes sense – “he's expected to make a full recovery, timeframe unknown.”

He’s not calmer, that’s not the word, but Bucky looks incrementally less stressed the more Tony speaks.

Steve hates it.

Tony continues. “You suffered penetration wounds to the right subclavian artery, left carotid artery, and a laceration across the right lower and middle quadrant. Subsequently, there was severe blood loss, damage to the liver, colon and appendix, which was removed, and shattered talus and tibia. Nat, Steve and I performed emergency first aid measures on the Quinjet for forty-three minutes until you arrived at the Tower and received care from Med-Team C. The first surgery went for seven hours on the 7th of April, of which you required a feeding tube and ECMO for life support overnight. Subsequent six hours on the 8th and ECMO for that night, but you’ve been managing independently since. You've got quite a few second-degree burns as well, but they're healing well. It's expected you'll recover fully, in time.”

Bucky just lies there, on his left side, his breathing strained and heavy. At some point, it looks like he tries to speak, gurgles a little, and splutters as he does, so Steve holds again where he held before to let Bucky spit it out.

Though it seems pointless, Steve can’t help the automatic response to murmur, “You’re okay, you’re okay.” This time it seems to be okay, doesn’t seem to hurt Bucky as much, and he doesn't try to push away. Bucky’s eyes seem less afraid, less wary of Steve as he brings his hand up again to brush away the hair that’s fallen onto his face, over his mouth. Steve is confident in the stitches’ integrity now, and keeps one hand pushing away the hair, like he saw Nat do on a better night. Steve continues the motion with what he can with only his fingertips on his left hand, and brings his splinted right hand to clasp at Bucky’s metal hand lying open on the bed.

It’s not much, but Steve hopes it’s enough.

“Do you feel up to letting someone check you over?” Tony asks gently.

Bucky shakes his head, more of a slight movement than an actual answer. Tony doesn’t look surprised, but Steve’s swallow is audible.

Tony just gives Steve a helpless shrug, and says defeated before it's even begun, “I’ll give you two some time. Jarvis will let me know if you need anything. Just outside,” he says, and Steve has no doubt he means a plural, not a singular party.

Bucky already needs something, he needs everything, but Tony's not willing to fight for it so Steve will have to try on his own.

There's not much fire available in him when he looks to Bucky, though. Awake, Bucky looks even worse than asleep. It’s like opening his eyes has taken so much energy that his cheeks have sunk all the way in, and Steve can’t just hear the struggle it is to breath, but see it with every painful contraction that pokes ribs out, even through all the bandages. The bruising hasn’t faded much along his torso, but against the navy sheets, Bucky’s available skin is a pale grey, and there are dark patches of sweat and spit from his fearful wakening. Even his eyes have lost all their life, no longer an icy blue; they're as dark as the sunken circles underneath, from what Steve can see through an unseeing half lidded gaze.

Steve can’t believe he thought Bucky looked close to death before. That was Bucky, teetered towards living, but now-

Steve doesn’t know what to do.

Rather than anything helpful, he explains what happened, from what Steve saw of the explosion, to this moment. Taking the hand from Bucky’s hair, Steve strokes his thumb gently down Bucky's cheek, his eyebrows and traces his jaw as he speaks, gently around the rare pockets of unblemished skin.

“I know you don't feel too good right now, but everything's okay,” he finishes lamely with, from his perch on the side of the bed, his fingers back up brushing in Bucky’s hair. “Everything’s going to be okay.”

Bucky just breathes into the silence, and it sounds painful, a grating whimper.

“Will you let,-” Steve almost says doctor but stops himself in time, no doubt Bucky catches it anyway, “-Helen look you over?” It's an instant fear, much like the one that he saw when Steve first touched him. “I won’t even let her touch you. But she can give you something for the pain.”

Bucky shakes his head again, a small twitch, and pulls futilely at the blankets. Steve doesn’t point out that he’s already seen, already looked, viewed the parts of Bucky Steve thinks he didn’t want him to see - Steve's seen more of Bucky, inside and out, than he'd ever wished for - just stands to let the blanket loose. He pulls it up over Bucky’s shoulders, all the way to his chin. It might not be that anyway; Bucky’s so far shown an affinity for warmth and comfort. Steve doesn't know much, it seems.

It doesn’t matter. If it’ll help, Steve will do it.

There’s less of Bucky for Steve to hold once he's covered, but he sits close anyway. Bucky’s ear is covered with a bandage; Tony forgot to mention that it was black with burns but they think it should be okay, but Steve still avoids it and the burnt hair and scalp around it as he brings the free fingertips of his left-casted arm up to Bucky’s face again.

He doesn’t do a good enough job. Bucky hisses imperceptibly at the contact, so Steve removes it, knowing that for Bucky to make a noise, it must be worse than bad.

“They made some pain medication for you, Bucky. It works, and it’s good. It will help you feel better, I promise.”

Steve still knows the answer is no though Bucky doesn’t bother with a jerk of his head.

He’s met Bucky’s resistance thus far, but this, he thinks, this existential stubbornness is maybe something he learnt from Steve. No one else can be that frustrating. It’s different, being on the receiving end of it, however. Steve had been so concerned about Bucky even waking in the first place, had somewhat been convinced he’d be in so much pain that he’d do anything for it to stop.

But maybe this isn't even the worst pain Bucky's ever been in. Maybe he knows he'll get through this because he has everything else before. 

Even those thoughts alone hurt Steve.

And Tony is right. If they force it, then they’re no better than Hydra, so Steve has to work on convincing him.

They’re quiet a bit longer, Bucky’s breathing too much of a wheezing and his body too tense to be anything close to relaxed. Steve tries again, softer, with more pleading. “Nat held your heart in her hands, Buck. That's gotta feel something.” 

Bucky shakes his head, and tries to speak, but it quickly gets lost in a swallow that gets stuck, and choked back out into the growing puddle on the floor. There’s no blood this time, at least. But it doesn't negate that this time, it doesn't seem to pass as quickly as the others.

“I'll be here the whole time, if that helps,” Steve says as Bucky lies almost on his stomach, gasping over the bed, long slings of saliva dropping onto the carpet. “Or your Tasha, or Tony, whoever you need. It’s just to stop the worst of the pain, and nothing else. Please let the doctors help, Bucky.” 

It takes minutes for Bucky to reply this time, long after he's tried to push and Steve has helped him back onto his side, curled obvious and excruciating pain. It's a full body twitch, and combined with the waxy grey pallor of Bucky, it's familiar in a way Steve never wanted to be again.

It's death, it's hollowed bodies long after their souls left. It's bodies missing from the belly buttons down jerking in the mud, and tightening fingers of pale corpses already in graves but not yet covered in dirt. Looking at Bucky right now, there's not much Steve knows to differentiate between the living and the dead.

It’s not something he wants to keep seeing, it’s not something he _can_ keep seeing; Steve feels it tearing at him the same way the Tesseract peeled away the skin of the Red Skull. There’s not even any of Bucky to hold onto, to keep him grounded, and Steve feels himself wanting to pull away from the situation, to go somewhere nicer, like that floaty place on Bucky's stairs, or up to the lights outside. Still attached to the earth by the rattling of Bucky's breath, there’s just enough left of him to try one last time. “I trusted you, when I woke in S.H.I.E.L.D. I didn’t like any of it, but I trusted you. I know it’s not the same, but can you trust me? Trust me that the medication is good, and good only. It’ll help.”

Perhaps there’s a bit of karma, for saying that he briefly didn’t trust Bucky on that first day; hurt washes over him when Bucky shakes his head, no to the trust or the medication, but it’s like acid, and only helps to strip away the layers of Steve. He can’t see it on the outside, his skin, clothes and casts still in tact, but he certainly feels it on the inside.

Bucky, for the first time ever since Steve’s known him, kicks him when he’s down. “Can’t,” he rasps, in a voice that’s nothing like his own, nothing that Steve has ever heard before. It’s too raw, and grating, and the agony overshadows any timbre that once was Bucky's richness of life. “Can’t, Stevie, I can’t.”

The ‘Stevie’ works in a peculiar way. Three days without and it clings to him like a second skin, much like the protective cloak that kept him warm and safe in D.C. This time, though, it does nothing for the inside, no light or safety from the center of Steve’s being, possibly because Bucky keeps going, pleading, slashing, flaying at Steve’s heart until it hurts so badly that Steve _cries_ of all things. He doesn’t know where this leak keeps springing from recently, but it continue as Bucky speaks; over and over, but they're not words but just sounds by now, just wails, pitiful cries.

If he was an animal, Steve would want to put him out of his misery.

But he's not, he’s _Bucky_ , and right now he's fracturing the last of Steve's sanity.

It could be a minute or an hour before Bucky succeeds, and Steve feels the full effects of being wrong - everyone has been telling him how he should have been reacting to life that carried on around him - but this is the first time he’s felt shocked into a shell, a Stevie on the outside and nothing inside, just hollowed out like those corpses with no soul. He’s just simply existing in this body, sure that he in himself could probably recognise a thousand-yard stare out into the Manhattan skyline.

But not quite; Steve is still crying, though nothing really hurts. Not Bucky, or himself, or electricity, the hungry or the tired or the pure and overwhelming _exhaustion_ of being awake after deliberately crashing a plane laden with explosives, sixty-six years into a different century, with a dying best friend in all sorts of pain Steve will never understand.

The soundtrack of Bucky continues, but Steve’s brain can’t offer anything to help that Bucky will accept, so there’s a stalemate. In fact Steve's brain can't offer anything more than simple autonomous functions of breathing and heart beating, so it'll be up to a dying Bucky to offer the white flag.

Steve is vaguely aware hours pass that way; he watches the sun move down the window. But it’s the only change in the room, as Steve’s tears don’t slow and Bucky stays curled in sufferance, watching up through heavy eyes, excruciating pain from his breath, his heartbeat, his living.

When a change comes, it’s before dusk and Bucky shuffling his left arm out under the covers. It’s for no reason other than to reach for Steve’s casted hand, a move that sets Steve’s mouth in an attempt of a hard line and causes an influx of new tears.

It’s meant to be the other way around, him comforting Bucky.

Because it does help, the touch, like Steve hoped it had for Bucky. Bucky pulls him back down, tugging and tethering himself to this reality until he can formulate what he wants to say. Not exactly a white flag, that was never Steve’s to wave. “This whole time,” Steve’s voice is no better than Bucky’s hours before, he wonders if he can lubricate his throat by swallowing his own tears, “I was so scared a Nazi, or Hydra, now Hydra again was going to hurt you. But they’re not. It’s you. And it’s not just hurting. You’re killing yourself.” He doesn’t care about much, certainly doesn’t care if his words make Bucky feel guilty. It’s the truth. “And I don’t want you to die.”

“Won’t,” Bucky grunts.

“You might.”

Nothing.

Stalemate, again.

“Please take the medication, Bucky.”

“Can’t.”

There’s nothing he can do.

Though Peggy said he was strong for heading to Austria on a whim, strong heart and mind and spirit, it was the exact opposite. The serum did exactly what Erskine said it would; bad became worse. Steve's weakness burgeoned, so badly he tried to hotwire a jeep into enemy lines with the slim chance of bringing back something, anything, for the Barnes family to mourn, and the even smaller chance of Bucky alive. He'd say god knows what he would have done if Bucky actually died in Krausberg, but he's wrong. Not only does god know, but so does the rest of the world, just eighteen months later. The serum clearly still thrums through his veins, enough for an arctic winter, and enough to debilitate him now.

Too weak to even look at Bucky, Steve admits, “I can't do this either.”

“Alright, Steve. It’s alright.”

It's Nat, and Steve can see in the reflection Tony and Clint.

Maybe it's too many people, maybe Bucky needs eyes on them to feel better. Steve doesn't know. He doesn't know anything. He just knows that he _can't._

So he stays looking out the windows at the night coming to life, the opposite of Bucky, while the team approach, and sit, or stand, he doesn't know or care.

"Well, you've certainly looked prettier," Clint quips, somewhere behind him.

A huff of air, could be Tony.

Nat walks forward and kneels down in line with Bucky’s head, not mindful of the vomit and whatever it is. She pushes his hair back firmly, almost gripping his head as she does so. She's young, and if Steve thought she was vulnerable when showing herself in the bathroom, all he got was another mask. This, is something Steve could hardly describe, unless he painted it.

She’s caring, more so than Steve could ever make his voice or his eyes, and she reaches out to do in Bucky’s hair what Steve cannot.

The silence tells him that she and Bucky share a conversation, like only they can, without saying anything. Nat can read his eyes better than Steve, where all Steve sees is dead and lifeless, Natasha reads a whole novel.

And she’s displeased by it.

But not when she speaks to him.

“They have developed some medication for you. One, to help you sleep, and sleep without dreams. You need to rest, from eight o’clock to eight o’clock, and another four hours during the day. Not forever, just a few days, until your body can cope with the amount of healing you still need to do. Someone will be here every time, to stand guard, and to be here when you wake, I promise. We promise.” She continues her motions, and there’s a shift, as Bucky tries to lean into the touch. She shushes him a bit more, and continues, “When you’re awake there’s an opioid equivalent to ease the worst of the effects. Just enough as you need, regulated by you.”

Bucky doesn’t answer, but his grip on Steve’s fingers tightens.

"You are in pain, James, and you don't have to be. Not anymore, it's over."

“Come on, Bucky,” Tony, as well, but he’s got a tone about him. If that’s something he learnt from Howard, then, well, that explains a bit. “You used yourself as a knife sharpener. Do not recommend under the best of circumstances. And definitely not without something to take the edge off. It’s clean, it’s pure, I made it myself, I checked it myself. We tested it on Steve, who can-”

Bucky’s response is not unexpected – Bucky resumes his animalistic nature again, apparently enough energy conserved to thrash on the bed against Nat’s grip – but Steve’s is. He just does nothing, but continue to look out the now darkened window.

A little sardonically, Steve thinks it, of all things, should comfort him.

‘ _Oh hi, Bucky, you almost died, it was pretty touch and go for days, not weeks this time, though. Post script, I used myself for human experimentation again. Don't worry, it went as well as the it did when the last Stark was involved. Guess this crazy future ain’t so different from nineteen-forty-three, hey?’_

It’s a crazy train of thought, and Nat is looking at him rightfully so. He doesn’t say it, but under the weight of her stare, he feels he should answer regardless.

“S'good,” Steve says. It's flat, toneless even in his semi deaf ears. Even Nat seems shocked by the indifference in his voice. Then, she’s disappointed, but he doesn’t have it in himself to care.

This time, he can feel Bucky’s gaze as well, torn away by Nat pulling his eyes to face her.

“It's not losing time, James,” Nat croons softly. “Just sleeping. Like you have been. It's been so good to you.”

A brick wall might have less resistance. Not a concrete; Steve read about the Berlin wall. Steve thinks not even half a million people could topple Bucky right now.

Bucky rips his eyes back. "Steve," he rasps, but Steve can't listen to it, can't hear it, and turns his head further away from Bucky, as if he was still deaf in that ear and it would help shut out the keening.

Nat follows his gaze, then says softly, “Perhaps you’d like to take a shower.”

It's a misdirection, but also an order. 

But Steve doesn't want to be here anyway. He doesn't particularly want to be anywhere, but right here and now seems to be the worst of his options. For everyone.

He stands, and Tony says, “We’ll give you some privacy, just let Jarvis know if you need a hand.”

It’s pretty obvious Steve needs two hands – he’s been instructed to keep the cast out of water, hence Pepper. But he also knows that the walk to the bathroom will be hard enough, let alone actually showering, so its not matter.

Steve doesn’t look back as he heads to the showers, doesn’t see the looks anyone gives him as he closes the door, doesn’t see Bucky twitch when Natasha says something in Russian, something Steve might think is his name. 

He also hears Tony call out, “You might want to think about that thing on your face,” just before he clicks the door shut.

After years of knowing Bucky, he almost expects it to be a joke about his nose, but one look in the mirror shows Steve that, for the first time in his life, he has a beard.

It’s scraggly, and not particularly nice, but still, it’s hair growing from his face. He’d known if could happen, only since the serum obviously, but he’d never had the chance or choice. He’d been so terrified the Army would recognise him as a farce, would kick him out when they ran out of cover stories for his reckless actions, that even things like uniform regulations he actually followed. Even on weeks long missions, he was a stickler.

So now, it’s as much of a difference as the mottled purple on his cheeks, now a little yellow, and the dark under his eyes, and the cheekbones that actually look sharper despite the beard.

He looks a little like Bucky, actually.

The beard was probably a good tear catcher though, stopping him from leaking onto Bucky, who looks like the slightest breeze could call for a eulogy, let alone an infection.

He turns on the stream, pretense for who he's not sure, and sits on the side of the tub still fully clothed instead of hopping in. Surely he's clean from his own shower of tears. He’d scrubbed himself clean with less in Europe, a situation that seems so much better than the one he's found himself in.

Steve sits, and waits, and waits some more, wondering if he should have noted the time so he could pretend to take an acceptable length shower. If he asks Jarvis, he’s sure that will be passed on, so he sits and waits some more, and thinks of nothing more.

Eventually, someone knocks.

Nat, she waits for him to okay, but he doesn’t, so she enters, and hardly seems surprised to see him sitting on the tub’s edge.

“Am I still being managed?” He intones, is the same passive tone he'd answered her in before.

"Basic self hygiene I'd call care, not management, actually."

“Showering everyday seems wasteful,” he says.

“More wasteful than letting the water run while not even being in it?”

He shrugs.

She comes in front of him and nudges his arms up. Steve follows, an automatic response from when he was a child, and she pulls his shirt off.

“I’ll wrap the cast so you don’t have to stand with it out, but you can take the Velcro off if you promise not to use your hand.”

He doesn't know what she means, so he does nothing, or maybe he'd do nothing even if he did understand her words. He's no energy, not even to undress himself or shower, the basic tasks. He almost feels as if it was his blood that drained out on the field, certainly Bucky is more animated than him.

His mood throws her, or maybe its the reminder that he's not from her world. She pulls gently at the noisy fabric on his right hand. “It’s–, the material, holding your splint. It’s called Velcro. Based on burs, the little plants that stick to your clothes when you walk through a bush. Come on, up.”

Nat doesn’t bother with modesty like Pepper, just strips him fully, and he adds it to the list of things that seem meaningless to him in this future of April 10, 2011. She directs him under the spray, and doesn't even start when she begins to wash him. It seems methodical, but perhaps there’s care hidden that Steve is not used to. He has to be prompted to take the washcloth from her, with a look and a, “For the places I'm sure you're happy I missed.”

He stands under the water until she turns it off, and by now she's aware that he's not doing _anything_ , so takes a towel and steps him out of the tub and begins to dry him.

“For future reference, Tony doesn’t think it’s wasteful at all to shower every day. And if you need help, with your hands, or anything else, just ask,” she says as she rubs the towel through his hair. She reaches for a hoodie, Bucky's black hoodie, that they've all worn recently. As she bundles it up to fit it over his head, she says with a sly smile, “Perhaps the jumper is not the only thing we can share.”

Whether its a true comment, or she's trying to scandalise him, his only response is April 10, 2011. He just waits for her to wrangle the clothing over his head and shove his arms in. As he steps into pants, his own sleep ones, her face falls into something sad, something thin lipped.

“Let’s clean this up too, hey?” She asks, scratching under his chin at his newly sprouted facial hair.

He just stares.

She observes him a moment, then looks to the door, and murmurs, "Maybe I'll leave it." Louder, and back to Steve, she says, “I’m not going to shave it off, just trim it. Otherwise, you’ll get Tony coming after you in the middle of the night. And we know how that turns out, we have to look at it every day.”

Steve doesn’t really have a say in much of the situations of the twenty-first century and no fight to oppose them, so he just sits back on the tub. She doesn’t even come near him with a razor, not a blade like he knows but a machined one, but barely a few minutes later she’s done and wiping stray hairs off the jumper, in a different sort of intimate than her just washing him naked.

“Alright?”

He shrugs. The bruises are the most defining feature of his face right now, but he supposes, yes, there is a beard on his face.

“Alright,” Nat says, her tone altered. Business. “I spoke with James before I came in here. He has kindly agreed to allow the doctors into the room, and trial the medication and a feeding tube, on several conditions.” Bucky isn’t business. “I will stay, apologies if that makes you uncomfortable." A pause, then, "I assume you are sleeping here tonight?”

Steve doesn’t bother answering.

“It would be wise for us both to stand guard on the trial of something unknown. I trust these doctors with my life, I have many times, but they are just looking at numbers. The two people who know him best are us, so it works out well. We'll know before their science does if something is not right. There's also the legalities of the situation. As an adult of age, he is entitled to certain rights which we are not allowed to overhaul. Granted, we can persuade him, as I just did for his own benefit, but his word was final long before we signed the papers. The first is his DNR. Are you aware of what that is?"

Steve just looks at her. He's not sure what her reaction is to his lack of responses, because she's hiding them well.

"America call it a ‘Do Not Resuscitate’ procedure. People can opt out of life preserving medical procedures if the event arises. Basically, if they’re dying, you let them die.”

Silence.

“But James has signed his first tonight as S.H.I.E.L.D's is inapplicable in civilian situations. His states that should the incident arise, he will allow any and all appropriate medical measure to prevent his death.”

He can see the Peggy in her, from that alone. There’s a colossal difference between not taking pain medications, and ‘save my life’.

“There’s more. In situations where James is unable to make informed decisions, he is allowed to appoint a person to make these for him. He’s asked me to do so.”

Steve’s glad he’s not feeling much, because the hurt, and the injustice would overwhelm him. Bucky’s done nothing but control his life, forcing Steve through the worst of it, 'caring' as he sometimes called it, and he can’t even give Steve the same.

He doesn't speak, doesn't react, but the small parting of his lips is enough for Natasha.

“Don't take it like that, Steve. It's too much for him to offer an explanation in this state, but perhaps he thinks it would be too much for you, to decide, if anything else were to happen. That you would not live well with the outcome, and would feel grief, or responsibility undeservedly.”

She waits, and like the medication explanation to Bucky, he feels compelled to answer even through the pressing weight of the world around him.

“Okay.” He says, and she sighs again.

“Steve,” Nat says seriously. “He wants it to be me, because he knows that I will kill him.”

It dislodges some of the thick he's been struggling under. “What?”

“I will.”

“You said he didn’t want the, resuscitation.”

"I did."

“So he opted out.”

“Of medical treatments.”

“I don’t understand.”

“If Hydra ever got their hands on him again, I would kill him before they had the chance to even speak his name.”

Steve still doesn't understand. “Why would you do that?”

“Because it’s what he wants. You, Tony, even Clint, would try to save him, from Hydra. Would prolong his pain just to prolong his living. It would be,” he knows this word is coming, “a kindness, from me.”

The heavy fog lifts enough, this time for him to manage out, "All this time,” he has to blow rough air out his nose, but chases it, he needs it, “you've been sending him on missions towards Hydra, with a greater chance of him being captured than not. You've been sending him to die.”

“Is that a bad thing?”

He tries the intense stare on her.

“Ninety-four is a perfectly acceptable age to die. Besides,” she picks at piles that aren’t there on her pants, “it’s possibly the only way he can die. It seems that after the first few times he tried, Hydra conditioned him to not be able to commit suicide, and that was a measure Peggy herself was unwilling to undo, despite it's origin. It’s unlikely to be of old age or illness at this point. Perhaps the only way to die is for someone you care about to do it for you.”

Steve’s not able to question his own mortality at the moment. “Then I would kill you.”

It’s Natasha’s turn to shrug. “I’m okay with that.”

“Then why didn’t you let him die?”

Maybe she tried. Maybe she was stopping his heart, rather than keeping it going.

“Because it was different. It wasn't them, he was with us, people who love him, family. It wasn't a matter of them getting a hold of him again." He still doesn't understand the difference. "I don’t want him to, Steve. But if it’s better for him, then I can understand that. And it's that same logic he'd like me to apply to any medical situations that should arise.”

It's a difficult situation for him to be in. On one hand, the left, Steve is trapped within himself as much as his hand is the cast, a feeling he can't quite identify being his encompassing blockade, a feeling that makes it difficult to care about much or anything at all. On the right hand, his heart is only splinted, enough flexibility to move and understand pain that he knows he _can't_ let this woman be alone with Bucky, not when she so freely converses about _murdering_ him.

She seems not to notice his struggle. “Now, if you’re ready, James would rather like you there for the next parts. He’s waiting, and he needs to sleep.”

Steve follows though limbs that feel like the sludge he had to fight after Bucky carried him up the stairs, because his other option would be sitting idly by while she has opportunity to carry out her plan.

Though he hadn't expected anything, the sight of Bucky is shocking after Steve compared their own faces. And then there's the painful expression on it, so Steve stops looking. He can't afford to detach himself further, with Natasha in the room.

“Alright, it’s beddy-byes for the both of you,” Tony says, either unknowing or uncaring to what Natasha just confessed. Natasha sits on the arm chair that's pulled next to the bed, Steve's chair, so he sits back on the bed in the spot of before, and stares at her. “We’ll leave you to it.”

Clint presses his cheek onto the top of Natasha’s head, and Tony wiggles his fingers, leaving in switch with doctors who no longer look like doctors, just regular people on the street, albeit their fashion different from what Steve knows.

"Alright, Mr Barnes. You're still happy to proceed?"

Steve feels the beds move as Bucky nods, but he keeps looking at Natasha.

“Not here,” Bucky rasps, and tries to bring his hand up to his throat.

“I’d think not,” Helen says gently. “The wrist is okay for the medication. The feed can go straight into the heart, but only when you’re awake, if you’d rather us not monitor you while you’re asleep.”

Another nod.

“Alright. Steve, if you will?”

He doesn’t really know what’s expected of him, but Bucky reaches for his right hand. Steve still looks at Natasha.

He knows when they begin, because Bucky’s metal hand scrambles in his, then clenches, hard, until it shatters the knitting bones again through the splint.

Then it's done.

“There, all finished. Mr Barnes, are you still consenting for the sedative?”

Another shuffle, and Steve watches as the doctors insert a needle into a bag of fluids, the one attached to Bucky, that he knows, he prays Natasha hasn’t infiltrated, that will make Bucky fall asleep. Just like Steve did.

It doesn’t take long before Bucky's breathing evens and is less laborious, the grip on Steve's hand releases, and the tension on the bed goes slack.

Bucky is asleep, and it’s now that Steve can dare to look, to ensure that he’s not the dead Natasha would wish on him. It’s more peaceful than how he looked on the machines, but not the calm that Steve’s seen him. He’s not actually sure Bucky will ever get back to that.

“Sorry,” Helen says to Steve, and grimaces. “I didn’t quite expect that. Just, give us a moment, we'll sort your hand out.”

He doesn’t really care, but he’s slipped an ice cube and the doctors return with a machine to scan his bones and cast his right hand as well, then leave.

He keeps looking at Natasha.

“You can sleep, Steve. You need to sleep. I’ll watch over him.”

He lets his gaze turn steely.

He stays watching Natasha, until barely ten pm, and suddenly, in an otherwise quiet night, Bucky starts to stir beside him.

It’s not a stir, not a waking, the bag of medication is still full, a quick glance shows him.

It's a stiffness, an inability for Bucky to use his own limbs, to do anything, include sleep, but apparently make small whimpering noises that are wildly different to the ones Bucky made when he was awake and in agony. His breathing changes, not laborious or heaving, but quick and wet, and it's then that Steve can understand the similarities to the tent, though that was silent and thrashing; a nightmare. A terror.

Then come the cries for Tasha.

“Are you going to kill him now,” Steve says, again as apathetic as he feels.

But Natasha looks fearful, and steps closer to look. “No. I’m going to get the doctor. This isn’t right.”

He almost considers ripping the tubes from Bucky himself and just running, back to D.C or that island, away from Natasha who so freely says she’ll hurt him, away from the pain medication which isn’t taking but causing pain. He considers doing what Bucky actually wants, in this situation and letting him feel a pain that seems to be nowhere as near horrifying as this nightmare.

The doctors enter, Tony not far behind.

“What’s he saying?” Tony asks of the noises Steve didn't even recognise was Russian mumbling.

“Nothing you’d like to hear,” Natasha says and Tony winces.

Steve hears Natasha’s name again, or a version of it, so he can take a guess.

And so can Tony. “How much did you give him?” He asks of the doctors.

“Just enough to put him under, and keep him under. I don't know why it's doing this.”

Another doctor pipes up. "If the sedative's not enough to be in a deep sleep, he'll be in constant state of dreaming. Or perhaps, in this case, nightmare."

They look over him a few moments more, until the hum and agree. "Rapid eye movement, quick and irregular breathing, heart rate and blood pressure increased and temporary paralysis, as seen in REM state sleep."

Tony cuts in. "Can you give us a sec," and they look surprised, as Bucky cries beneath them, but leave all the same.

When it's just Steve and Natasha, he explains, “It's just a working theory, but I don't think his REM sleep is that much different to the state they needed him to be the Soldier in."

Natasha looks at him, and lowly answers, "Go on."

"Look, I got no data on it. But Bucky in their hands fully awake was too resistant, too himself. They only let him sleep in cryogenic where he wasn't able to be used. In a waking REM, a sleep like state, he's in between, confused, easier to manipulate and mold into what they need." Tony looks at Bucky again, and presses his lips together. "I don't think the electricity from the chair was just to remove his memories, but maybe it was like a pace maker, something to alter his brain wave patterns when he was awake to put him in that state."

To Steve it seems a little ridiculous, enough to offer his opinion. "You're saying he was sleep walking the entire time with Hydra?"

"I mean, a massively exaggerated version, but quite."

To Natasha and Tony, it's not quite as far fetched. "It would make sense, to as why he is so resistant to sleep, exhausting himself so much until perhaps he knows he can skip or alter the dream stages."

"I don't just think he's dreaming right now, Nat," Tony says softly. "I think he could be living it."

If he wasn't aware of her history, Steve would think it was her turned Winter Soldier in the night. She turns every bit as deadly as Bucky when he held a knife to Steve's head, every bit as animalistic, as deadly.

Because this is what she _told_ Steve she would do. She would kill Bucky if he ever fell into Hydra's clutches again.

And here they are, in Bucky's own room, inside his mind, where she put them with the sedation.

Sedation that was Steve's idea.

Maybe he _should_ just let her kill Bucky. From his kept spot between the pair, she'd have to go through Steve first, and it's what he would deserve for proposing the idea of medication in the first place. And seeing Bucky like this, knowing what Steve's done, all the pain, perhaps it might be a kindness to finally die. They would get their grave together, and the exhaustion that Steve mentioned and Bucky admitted to on the plane would finally. Be. Over. They could finally sleep, eternally and peacefully, more than the living world would ever offer them.

He waits for her move.

Instead of a quick knife or gun, a pillow or a snapped neck, she sags. First her posture, then her body, back into the chair.

"I thought it was simply the reminders." She looks a little like she did when she let Steve in, before he helped her in the bathroom; young and pink and scared. "If we try a higher dosage, what happens?"

"It might send him into a deep sleep, surpassing REM, or it might just trap him in the cycle, or too much could shut down his whole body. I dunno, Nat, we couldn't test it. Steve wouldn't have known, none of us knew."

"Bring them in."

The doctors seem to agree with Natasha's idea, and Steve doesn't try to stop them, though he knows what the consequence could be. It hardly seems like a consequence, even though it's Bucky's life in bargain. "This is more what we'd actually like from sedation," they say as they work out calculations that should keep Bucky from both REM and death. 

It doesn't take long, and though Steve knows there's a change when the cries stop and Bucky's breathing slows, the doctors confirm it with comments about his heart rate and breathing, his eye patterns, even his muscle laxity.

"It does pose a problem with waking, though. No matter his metabolism, a drop in dosage might enter him into REM stage even for a short amount of time. I'm assuming you'd like to minimise his REM stage?"

Tony chews on his nail for a moment. "Avoid it altogether, if we can. Can you cut it off cold turkey and do say like, a flush or a saline? Maybe adrenaline to wake him just incase."

The doctors look unwilling, but Tony pushes, until Natasha's convinced enough and they have to concede. "Would you like some painkillers in that too so he wakes at least in less pain."

She nods, but looks to Steve. "Just for tomorrow. We'll see how he responds, and change it as need be. I think it'll be our best option. Otherwise..."

It doesn't matter to Steve. It's not up to him. And his only other suggestion only gets one chance, before they're no longer around to try it.

"We'll have a doctor on standby and do a check every hour, but other than that, we'll be here at eight o'clock to wake him."

Natasha and Tony thank the doctors as they leave.

"Are you two alright if I head off to bed too?"

Natasha nods, and though Steve is far from, he nods as well. Tony silently slips out, and Steve and Natasha return to their guard, of an unconscious, unknowing, Bucky.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wrote this while listening to Taylor Swifts re-recording of 'Love Story', so if that tells you anything about me...  
> Also on I wrote it when I should be in my own REM stage so errors? Don't know her. Scientific or medical inaccuracies? Don't exist.  
>  _it's fanfiction people, everything works, right?_


End file.
